


Love is War; We Were Fools, Believing We Would Win

by crazyparakiss



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mates, Mpreg, Recreational Drug Use, Recreational Wolfsbane Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:14:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3544004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyparakiss/pseuds/crazyparakiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He’s not sure why he lets him in; Derek’s always pushing people out, but Stiles is like a weed he can’t un-root. No amount of anger, threats, or near death experiences will chase him away. Tonight Derek is too tired to try."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is War; We Were Fools, Believing We Would Win

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tricksune (caro_devss)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tricksune+%28caro_devss%29).



> So it's been near two years since I started this, and for most of that time RL, familial obligation, a series of expenses, and a broken comp kept me from getting this done when I wanted to have it finished. However, I enjoyed writing this piece. It's not the greatest thing the fandom has ever or will ever see, but it was a great distraction. 
> 
> I am so glad my recipient was very patient with me and was understanding. She rocks. In the Sterek campaign she won 3000 words. I think I went a tiny bit over that amount ;) I really hope you enjoy it, dearest!

 

Love is War; We Were Fools, Believing We Would Win

 

 

 

Derek remembers the first time he shifted, April 8th 1994. There was a sudden pop of his claws, major ripples of change in his face, and the sharp bite of fangs scraped against his lower lip. Derek was nine that day. He will never forget the exhilarating rush beneath his veins, nor the feel of his skin as it became more sensitive to the woods around him. His vision had changed, and he could easily track the smallest speck of dust as it drifted in the afternoon light that filtered down, through a canopy of leaves, in muted golden rays. He remembers and holds onto that moment when the overwhelming pain of every mistake he’s made, in twenty-six short years, threatens to break him. His memory anchors him when he has nothing else to hold him to this earth.

 

Even now, in the silent darkness of his loft, Derek pulls that memory to the surface. He needs it as the clock ticks closer to midnight. Fourteen minutes, he mouths as his eyes land on the bright red neon numbers of his alarm clock. By the time the numbers climb to five minutes ‘til he is nearly at the mercy of his wolf; the grief is something he’s never learned to deal with. One year, ten years, a hundred—Derek will never learn to deal with the fact that he killed his family.

 

“And for a shitty lay,” he mutters to the heavily creased photo in his hands. The names are hoarse as he pushes them out of his throat and off his tongue, “Talia, Laura, Dennis, Robert, Ina, Sheila, Cassidy, Cora, Peter, Derek,” he repeats the process. Again, and again, until the mantra brings back the familiarity of their faces.

 

He’s on his hundredth or so rotation when a soft knock comes from the steel door at the loft’s entrance. Derek doesn’t immediately rise. Instead he continues his mantra, in a soft voice, and closes his eyes to try and bring the images back to the forefront of his mind. His mother in her white sundress. Laura’s cocky grin and tobacco scented leather riding jacket. Grandmother Ina’s intelligent, assessing green eyes. The images are disturbed—like the still surface of a lake by a heavy stone—by another, more urgent, knock. Derek’s planning to ignore the sound, again, but the voice of his visitor has him rising from his bed.

 

“Derek, come on—Derek, I know you’re in there.”

 

He’s not sure why he lets him in; Derek’s always pushing people out, but Stiles is like a weed he can’t un-root. No amount of anger, threats, or near death experiences will chase him away. Tonight Derek is too tired to try. So he lets the steel door hang open, and Stiles takes the invitation for what it is as he follows Derek inside.

 

The silence stretches over them. Derek sits on his couch and watches Stiles fidget in the muted light, from all the neon and street lamps outside; their glow streaming in through the large window that dominates the north wall. It bothers Derek that he finds Stiles beautiful. Beauty has always led Derek to misery. He continues to wait for Stiles to say something—yet nothing comes. Finally, he takes pity, when Stiles won’t quit twitching, and opens the floor for conversation. “What’re you doing here, Stiles?”

 

Derek sees the way Stiles pulls his bottom lip between his large white teeth, and he can smell the Folgers Black Silk on Stiles’s breath even though they are four or so feet apart. The longer he’s forced into Stiles’s presence he finds more quirks he’s never noticed before. Like the way Stiles chews on his hoodie strings, the way he drums his fingers against table tops when nervous or bored; his naturally sweet scent that reminds Derek of wild jasmine and honeysuckle in summer, the way his eyes go soft and pained when he is empathizing, and Derek’s tired of being so conscious of this seventeen-year-old kid.

 

“I just thought you might…um…like someone to talk to.” Derek stands and notices the way Stiles tenses as he approaches, but he can tell Stiles’s heartbeat is not only full of fear—his smell gives away the underlying scent of arousal. The sharp, spicy scent of it clings to Stiles at all times; the usual with any virgin teenager Derek’s had the misfortune of encountering, but when he’s with Derek it’s far more heady. A sharper smell that calls to Derek like a siren’s song.

 

Derek is no saint; he’s been so damaged for so long he’s not sure there is enough penance to save what little is left of his fractured soul. So he thinks ‘fuck it’ as he steps into Stiles’s space and slips his palms over Stiles’s neck and cheek. Stiles melts into him. He’s a malleable mush in Derek’s arms, and Derek rumbles in a pleased way as he moves in for a kiss. His mouth leaves Stiles’s, wet and bruised, as it burns a path along Stiles’s fragrant neck to his shoulder. Derek bites into the junction between his shoulder and throat for what feels like hours, and allows himself to drown in the concentration of Stiles’s thick scent. Finally giving in to the temptation that struck Derek when he first caught the smell in the preserve.

 

“Derek,” Stiles whispers, yells, cries, moans, over and over; like a carnal prayer as Derek slowly familiarizes himself with every last centimeter of Stiles’s mole scattered skin. Blunted human nails leave red wakes on the white glow of Stiles’s soft usually hidden parts, and Derek traces the lines he leaves with gentle touches of his nose, lips, and tongue.

 

He knows he shouldn’t—the sirens are wailing in his mind when Stiles starts losing clothes—but Derek doesn’t stop. He can’t. The dam is breaking, and Stiles will be there with open arms to welcome the flood.

 

Stiles is responsive beneath Derek’s touch. Derek knew that he would be; there is too much energy in Stiles for him to sit still and take it. His breaths hitch in just the right way, and Derek wants to hate him, but even more he wants to keep him. He’s not sure what to do with those feelings, so he sticks to what he knows. Takes hold of Stiles’s cock, and strokes it with an expert’s ease; Derek whispers praises against Stiles’s temple, and pulls his sweat slick back flush against Derek’s damp chest. He opens Stiles’s legs wide over his lap before he grabs hold of his own cock. “I’m going to fuck you now,” his words are a dirty whisper against Stiles’s small ear.

 

“God, yes,” Stiles chokes out with a needy sob, “I’ve waited so long.”

 

Derek doesn’t think thirty minutes of slowly fingering Stiles open is _long_. In New York he spent many nights perfecting the art of sex. His longest one night stand lasted seven wonderful hours, before he finally gave in to her begging and fucked her to completion. He wonders what filth would spill from Stiles’s lips if he teased him for hours on end. He imagines Stiles begging for Derek’s fat cock as he abuses one of Stiles’s nipples, and nibbles along his bony shoulder line. Stiles arches into the torturous touch.

 

“Hurry, Derek,” Stiles demands in a pitiful tone; breaking Derek from his lustful imaginings. Stiles’s bottom lip wet and swollen from the catch of his pretty teeth. Derek is mesmerized by the splotchy color that is high on Stiles’s cheeks.

 

For once Derek does as he’s told, and presses up into Stiles’s body. Stiles is all tight, wet heat around Derek’s cock and he hisses as he slowly helps Stiles down onto his full length. Derek feels the air rush out of his lungs when he bottoms out. It hasn’t been long; Jennifer was three months ago, and not two weeks before tonight he followed a bit of strange back to her place. However this, with Stiles, is something else entirely—it’s an all consuming urgency for closeness, something thoroughly primal. Derek feels a thrumming in his veins; it pulls at the beast beneath his skin. He runs gentle claws across Stiles’s hip, and places a mark of claim against Stiles’s shoulder.

 

Stiles is all instinct as Derek ruts into him, and arches in perfect tandem with Derek’s thrusts. “Fuck, harder,” Stiles _growls_ , almost wolf-like. Then, after that permission, Derek loses himself in mindless fucking as he snaps his hips up, into Stiles, with a brutal pace.

 

He can tell Stiles enjoys the brutality; the way his mouth is slack and his honey brown eyes are wet from over stimulation. Derek drinks down the sight, afraid he'll never have the chance again. He's not fool enough to believe that this is more than comfort, more than need.

 

When Stiles comes—minutes or hours later, time is lost to Derek in this place with Stiles—Derek feels his muscles clamp around his cock. He smells the fragrant burst of completion, and watches, enraptured, as Stiles stills in his arms before, finally, becoming a boneless mess against Derek’s sweat soaked chest. But it's the dark pink flush running up Stiles’s torso, reddening his neck, and coloring his face that has Derek following him to orgasm. Derek’s release whites out his vision, and he lets loose a howl that rattles the walls. He loses control and yet Stiles’s presence anchors him where they are connected. The scent of _them_ contents his wolf, and when Derek’s reason comes back to him he finds himself holding Stiles tighter, rubbing his face against his neck—trying to absorb all that Stiles has to offer.

 

For once Stiles doesn't speak, and Derek is grateful for the silence. Stiles nuzzles against Derek, with Derek’s cock still firm inside him, and is asleep before Derek's afterglow subsides.

 

When morning comes Derek pretends to be in a deep sleep while Stiles dresses, with clumsy movements, before he leaves. After he’s gone Derek sits up in the bed to stare at the spot that is still warm from Stiles’s body—a spot that is heavily saturated with Stiles’s scent. Derek ignores the whine of his wolf when he climbs from bed and heads for the shower.

 

——

 

There is an unspoken rule between them. It is maintained in fragile silence, and neither is willing to examine what their night meant. They both cling to denial, and hope it keeps them safe.

 

Only nothing can.

 

——

 

Derek wakes from a dead sleep to the frantic howl Scott releases at four-fifteen one Tuesday morning, about a month after that passionate night in the quiet of his loft. Derek doesn't bother with his car once he's out of his building, after stumbling into some pants, and runs as fast as he can until he reaches the McCall residence. Bursting through the front door, shirtless and wild-eyed, like the barbarian they all believe him to be, and his neon eyes scan the room with intent. Nothing appears out of the ordinary. Melissa is unharmed, even if she does reek of weariness, and Scott doesn't look close to death, but he smells of sorrow. Behind Derek, Isaac skids to a stop and is closely followed by Malia, Allison, and Kira. When Scott steps closer to the newly gathered group, Derek sees Lydia rocking herself; crying on the dated couch in the McCall’s living room.

 

Then he realizes Stiles is missing, and Derek’s stomach plummets when Lydia tilts her head back to release a soul shattering scream.

 

——

 

Derek never expects to see him again. All around he catches sight of the posters; the ones with grainy colored photos of Stiles grinning widely. Some days, when Derek stops ignoring the constant absence and really looks at the fliers; he can clearly imagine Stiles flailing, the explosive way his body moves when he laughs, and the slight draw of his eyebrows when he frowns. Today is one such day; making Derek livid enough to rip the poster from beneath the corner light on Main Street. A few people stare at him in disbelief, but Derek ignores them as he makes his way home with guilt weighing on his soul. He has not right to be angry with Stiles, and he doesn’t—but he does feel angry with himself. Scott’s told him not to, and so has Isaac, yet Derek knows deep inside that this is his fault. It’s always his fault.

 

Derek never expects to smell him again. Stiles’s scent has faded from his Jeep, even his room is beginning to smell of stale dust and time. Yet, there are days when Derek catches a burst of honeysuckle or jasmine in his sheets, and it has him clinging to the fabric with a force he hardly recognizes. Desperate for the scent to be fresh, and not just a fading reminder of a memory.

 

Derek never expects to taste him again. That sweet and tangy skin that was all Stiles taunts his tongue. On occasion Derek's mind reminds him of the phantom flavor. He downs coffee, curly fries, and Reese's at once to try and recreate what he tasted in Stiles's mouth. It never satisfies, and beneath his skin the wolf rages with dissatisfaction.

 

Derek never expects to touch him again. There are nights when his hands itch from the memory of soft skin warm with arousal. His fingers trace the pillow Stiles slept on with intent, recalling the unique lines of Stiles's cheeks, lips, and his upturned nose. The hard line of Stiles’s shoulder and the long, delicate curve of his neck torment Derek's palms. During lonely nights, when all he has is the sound of downtown traffic, Derek is a slave to his memories.

 

Derek never expects to hear him again. Only, he _does_ , at three A.M. on a Friday. However, it's not the obnoxiously loud laugh he's hoping for; instead, it's a scream full of terror and pain. Derek's out of his bed in an instant. He doesn't remember running towards his car. Nor does he remember flooring it out to the preserve. Derek doesn't remember anything of going to Stiles. All he knows is that he is moving, and he doesn't stop until he's some fifteen feet from the highway, hidden in a small grove that is full of rain covered, rotten leaves. Stiles is there, mud caked, reeking of blood. Derek has the strange desire to drop to his knees and profess his undying loyalty to every deity in known existence for bringing Stiles home. The thing that stops him is the frantic whine that comes from Stiles’s throat. The sound has Derek rushing to touch him, to affirm that he is truly there.

 

"They tried—," Stiles is stammering, but Derek hushes him while lifting him into his arms.

 

"I've got you now, Stiles, shhhh, I've got you now." His grip is probably too tight, but Derek’s afraid to lessen his hold. The slightest give, and Stiles could leave him again. That’s something he’s not willing to risk.

 

Stiles is between consciousness and passing out as Derek settles him into the passenger seat of his new SUV. With the help of the night lamps in the car Derek is able to see the horror that is Stiles's abdomen. It's distended and mangled with deep gashes that are bleeding thick black ooze. "Fuck," Derek mutters as he quickly makes his way back to the driver's side before tearing out of the woods—speeding in the direction of Deaton's clinic.

 

He doesn't remember calling Scott, but he's there, with Deaton, when Derek arrives; holding the door open while Derek carries Stiles inside. A whine makes it’s way out of Scott’s throat, and Derek’s wolf wants to echo the sound. He squashes the instinct while he follows Deaton into the back. Settling Stiles’s dirty form against the cold metal table, Derek runs gentle fingers across his forehead and down the side of his pale face.

 

The blood and black muck are still oozing out of Stiles's stomach, but they’re slowing to a trickle. Derek doesn't know whether this is a good sign or a bad sign. Scott is the one who asks, and Derek is grateful; he's not sure he could get his throat to work if he tried. All he’s capable of, in this moment, is holding on to Stiles’s clammy hand.

 

"How unusual—and so unexpected," Deaton muses in his usual way while he strips Stiles's tattered shirt from his body. Deaton doesn't elaborate and Derek doesn't ask; right now he can only focus on Stiles and his barely there heartbeat.

 

"You're going to have to leave the room," Deaton says to them both, and they are moving to do as told when Stiles's hand shoots out, catching Derek around the wrist.

 

"Stay," he sobs, his grip is like steel despite his near death state and Deaton frowns. "Sodalis Vitae," Stiles sobs out, again and again, like he’s begging for mercy. It breaks something fragile and hidden in Derek’s heart.

 

Deaton looks to Scott, voice soft but firm when he says, "Derek stays, but you must wait outside." Derek’s attention is on Stiles, so he misses the change in Scott’s scent— _unease_ —and the worry in his dark eyes.

 

 

It hurts to watch, and he caves to the need to leach away Stiles's pain as Deaton cuts into his abdomen. The stench of death is there, in the black ooze; the unpleasant smell makes Derek whine in his throat. An empty prayer that he scarcely realizes he's whining as he holds tighter to Stiles. Deaton pulls the pup free of the womb, and Derek howls when he can't find a heartbeat. His cry rattles the walls, the windows, the very foundation of the clinic, yet Deaton doesn't take his eyes off the silent pup in his hands. Finally, after what seems like a lifetime, a soft whimpering cry comes from the pup's small throat. Derek calms instantly at the sound—relief flooding through him making him soft in the knees.

 

It's then that he notices the scent: warm honeysuckle, damp forest, and something uniquely this pup's. This is Stiles's child, Stiles's and Derek's; that truth kicks his feet out from beneath him. On the cold floor, of Deaton's clinic, Derek cries like he hasn't cried since the fire. Great wracking sobs tremble through him, his face is wet with hot snot and tears. Yet, he can’t bring himself to care that Deaton is there to witness his weakness.

 

When the sheriff gets to the animal clinic his blue eyes are bright with emotion as he bursts into the back room, demanding, “Where is my son?!”

 

The sheriff falters—Derek notices, from his position on the floor—as his eyes land on Stiles. Derek doesn’t have to look to know what he sees; the image is branded into his mind forever. Stiles white, with little life left in him, sports a mangled stomach covered in a mix of blood, black ooze, and remnants of the forest. “Oh,” the sheriff breathes, stumbling as his legs give out—managing to just catch his fall against one of Deaton’s counters.

 

“John,” Deaton says, his tone calm and eyes commiserating as he settles a gentle hand against the sheriff’s—John’s—shoulder. “You need to sit down, come, we can talk in my office-,” John cuts off the rest of Deaton’s words as he jerks away from his hold, and goes to stand beside the table where Stiles is lying, his form too still to be comforting.

 

“I won’t leave him,” his voice is choked with tears, and Derek stands in time to see him lean over and turn Stiles’s face. John presses his forehead to Stiles’s, and Derek can tell that John needs the gesture even if Stiles isn’t awake. “My boy,” he sobs, “My beautiful boy,” he sucks in an unsteady breath before he clears his throat to say, “Whatever you’ve got to tell me you can say it here. It’s been near nine months, now, Alan, I need to be with my son.”

 

“Well, John, to be honest, we’re not sure where he went, but we do know whatever, or whomever had Stiles tried to remove the child from his stomac-,” once again John cuts Deaton off, and Derek can see uninhibited rage in every line of his face when he turns to Deaton.

 

“What,” John’s voice is a dead calm, the kind of tone one uses before committing a heinous murder, and Derek takes a step back. “What _child_?” Before anyone can answer he starts again, “What sort of vile, twisted messed up joke is this?! Babies don’t just wind up in non-existent male wombs! Who put it there?!”

 

Derek, despite his fear, says, “I did.”

 

John breaks his knuckles on Derek’s jaw, the punch so quick it manages to take Derek by surprise, and he grimaces when he hears the snap of bone when John’s fist connects. The pain isn’t something that registers with John, apparently, because he hits Derek again. “You fucking piece of shit! Is this a game to you?! Turning kids into homicidal rage monsters! Impregnating them! Killing them for your twisted sense of werewolf pleasure!” Derek takes the abuse in silence, and doesn’t grunt when John lands a painful blow to his stomach. “I should take you to Argent, should borrow that bastard’s gun, and put you down like the damned dog you are!”

 

“Do it,” Derek coughs, “I deserve it.” His voice warbles when he speaks, “I did this to him, and I don’t deserve to live.” John looks ready to hit him again, but the sharp cry of the pup stops his fist. Derek watches as John turns, anger melting from his face while hurt replaces it, and John falls to his knees when he sees the small wriggling bundle in Scott’s strong arms.

 

“Derek would never force Stiles, John,” Scott promises with conviction, “I can guarantee you I know this kid is what kept Stiles going; this is what brought him home to us.” He settles a gentle hand against the pup’s forehead and the little boy stops wriggling as the comfort of an Alpha’s presence lulls him to sleep.

 

“I just wanted him to come back safe,” John finally admits with another sob, “I can’t lose him; I can’t shoulder another loss.” Derek remains still, but he silently agrees with John; Derek doesn’t know what he’ll do if Stiles dies.

——

 

Derek hasn’t a clue as to where to go with the pup. He can’t stand the idea of being away from Stiles, but John is taking him home and Derek’s not sure he’ll be a welcome addition to the cluster-fuck that is this situation. John doesn’t seem inclined to extend an invitation and so Derek stands awkwardly near the crying pup Scott placed into a carseat for him.

 

“You know,” Scott says, “This kid needs Stiles’s scent for comfort.” John pauses, back stiff as he prepares to climb into the driver’s seat of his cruiser. “Pack is the most important thing for us.”

 

Derek can’t see his face, but from the line of John’s back he can tell the man is fighting a silent battle in his mind.

 

“Derek, you and the baby are welcome to come—doubt I could keep you away if I tried,” he finally sighs, and adds, “I’ll need help nursing this kid back from the grave. I can’t exactly explain this leave of absence.”

 

——

 

John sits in pained silence stinking up the room with his bitter scent. It upsets the pup, the same pup that sits in a cheap plastic laundry basket, amongst many blankets, whimpering for the “mother’s” familiar warmth. A warmth Stiles doesn’t have in his too cold, too stiff limbs. Derek doesn’t dare hold him. Not once, in five days, has he caved to Scott or Melissa’s obvious passes. Instead, he let’s Scott hold the pup. Scott shakes his head at Derek in disappointment every time he’s the one who silences the small, mournful wails of Derek’s child. He can’t tell Scott he doesn’t want to hold the pitiful beast if Stiles can’t, and doesn’t want to tell him that if Stiles never regains consciousness he won’t have it in him to love the visual reminder of the reason Stiles is gone.

 

——

 

During the week, Scott can’t be there, however, he’s busy with school, and he tries to drill that truth into Derek; over and over. They never come to blows. Derek’s not sure why; honestly, Scott likes to err on this side of righteous, and it tends to make him act out at others when they don’t do as he feels they should. John doesn’t fight with him, not since that first and only set of blows. It’s like he, too, knows that Derek is defeated. He’s no sadist; John doesn’t attack those who refuse to defend themselves.

 

Most days Derek sits by Stiles’s bed with his hands somewhere on Stiles’s cool skin. The velvety feel of it is the only thing keeping him sane.

 

Melissa comes in and cleans Stiles up, twice a day, before her shift and after to bring fluids. Smuggling in bags of blood to transfuse. The first day she asked, foolishly, why they didn’t take Stiles to Beacon Hills Memorial. After Deaton showed her the gruesome gash across Stiles’s lower abdomen the reality sank in—for all of them really—he’d either get better by their hand or he would die on their watch. Derek doesn’t think of his odds as he watches Melissa change Stiles’s bandages. Her scent is tired, and the bags under her eyes look like deep bruises. Derek wants to thank her, but doesn’t know how to convey how grateful he is with words. She seems to understand what the complicated range of expressions on his face means, and as she leaves she runs a gentle, motherly hand across his broad shoulder.

 

——

 

As five days bleeds to ten, Derek begins losing hope, as he so often does, and even Scott, pillar of positivity that he is, begins to despair.

 

When they are at fifteen days the pup wails as Derek has never heard him wail before, and in his anger he throws himself out of his chair beside Stiles’s bed. Because the crying just _won’t stop_. He hovers, above the basket, alone in the house for the first time with the fruit of his loins. Derek debates the pros and cons of smothering the sorry bastard in his head. Then hates himself more when he catches himself seriously considering grabbing a pillow from Stiles’s bed. He falls to his knees before the small basket, and a gentle whine comes from amid the many folds of soft cotton blankets.

 

Derek looks upon it, _him_ , for the first time. Really looks at him. He’s all pale skin, with a mess of fine dark curls, little angry fists that are white with his fury, and Derek finds himself drawn in; by the little bow mouth that looks like Stiles’s while drawn in disappointment, and by the wide, curious eyes that flash electric _blue_. Suddenly, Derek’s heart is in his throat, and he’s moving away from his nameless pup. Clumsy as he stumbles up to his feet from his knees. Fear grips him when he lifts Stiles forcefully, by his shoulders, from his resting position. The faint flicker of life is growing fainter by the second, and he wonders, morbidly, if perhaps he only hears it because he wants to. Shaking him, Derek screams, “Stiles, God damnit, Stiles! You can’t die! Not now! Fuck!” He slaps him, “Stiles! Stiles! Stiles!” Until it’s leaving his throat on a howl.

 

Derek’s still shaking him—while tears obstruct his view of Stiles’s slack face—when Scott tries pulling him away from Stiles’s body. He doesn’t go willingly; Isaac winds up with his arm half ripped from his shoulder, Malia is holding her cheek to her face. Kira, Allison, and Lydia are smart enough to stand clear while Derek nearly takes Scott’s head from his shoulders. His only concern, only need, is to hold Stiles. To shake him back from death.

 

“Stiles! Don’t leave me!”

 

——

 

The halls of BHHS are eerily silent. There is perpetual fog at that the edges of his vision as he walks along the scuffed linoleum and trails his thick fingers over the lockers. Even the scratch of his claws over the metal doesn’t affect the silence, and Derek knows then that he isn’t really at the high school. He’s somewhere else, somewhere he’s not in control, and that sends a shiver of terror down his spine.

 

Aimlessly he wanders, for what feels like hours, until he’s near the auditorium. Finally, he hears sound. A voice, to be exact; a voice he’s craved since he found Stiles in the woods, near death.

 

He pushes into the auditorium and shouts Stiles’s name, but nothing happens. Stiles is still sitting. His long, lean back to Derek; speaking as he watches old, faded images where they are reflected from a projector onto a banged up screen.

 

“Stupid boy,” Stiles says, voice sad yet amused. “Look at her, idiot, it’s not like you’re going to get this again.”

 

Desperately Derek approaches, needing to affirm that Stiles is _real_. So he touches him. However, Stiles’s only reaction is to scream at the screen again, “LOOK AT HER!” He hits his own knees, knuckles white with fury while they beat against his thighs, “Don’t forget that her hair is unruly and free, like her spirit! Don’t forget her eyes are warm golden brown, like the honey she puts in your favorite pecan pie!” Derek tries to stop him from hitting himself, but all this does is make Stiles cry harder, “Stupid, stupid, stupid! Quit playing with your fucking food and look at her!”

 

Derek turns towards the projection, finally; what he sees, flickering and yellowed on the old screen is the familiar interior of Debbie’s Diner, the one that’s been on the corner of Maple and 1st since Beacon Hills has been a town (or so his dad always said). In one of the far corner booths, the round one that still, to this day, has the cracked green vinyl cushions, sits a family of three. A young, happy, carefree version of John Stilinski sits with his long slim arm thrown around the narrow shoulders of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the Stiles at Derek’s side. “Look at me, stupid little Stanisław Stilinski, I don’t even notice the way she’s curling that bit of hair around her finger. I don’t see the way she’s smiling at Dad. All I’m doing it shredding my pancakes and throwing them on the floor. At four, I didn’t know that these were precious, fleeting moments. I thought my mom was invincible.” Derek watches all those things happen, and feels a twinge of sorrow when he notices a four-year-old Stiles start to beat his hands against the table in a fit of boredom.

 

The memory fades to black, but he can still see a crackle; random spots of light as the film reel plays on, and a year flashes across the screen, 1999, in bold block font.

 

A new scene appears, just as yellowed and aged as the scene previous. Derek sits beside Stiles, determined to try and help, when a great heaving sob leaves Stiles’s slim throat. “No, no, no, no,” he groans, “No, not this. Please, God, anything... _anything_ , but this.”

 

Derek tries to touch Stiles’s arm; causing him to scream again and so he yanks his hand back to quiet the sound, but the damage is done. Stiles sits there rocking in place, crying harder, cursing his five-year-old self for being a little douchebag and for not realizing how much he was hurting his mother. Derek wants to comfort him, but doesn’t dare make it worse. He sits in agonizing silence beside Stiles, watching five-year-old Stiles kick at his dad and yell as he is forcibly dragged from the playground swings.

 

“I don’t want a stinky baby,” Stiles screams. John looks irritated, and Stiles’s mother (Claudia, Derek overheard Stiles say once) looks heartbroken. The way her large teeth catch her bottom lip, and the sheen of emotion over her brown eyes reminds Derek of the Stiles he sees on those nights when they are all afraid one of their ramshackle pack will not live to see the dawn.

 

“She was pregnant,” the Stiles beside him whispers, and when Derek looks at him he sees the same expression the Claudia on the screen wears on Stiles’s face. Again he stops himself from reaching for Stiles, and grits his teeth as he turns back to the projection.

 

“Stanisław!” John bellows, “You will stop right this second!” When Stiles kicks him again he spins Stiles around, near their new blue Jeep Wrangler, and spanks him before wrestling him into the car. Stiles doesn’t go willingly, and Derek witnesses the birth of John’s exasperated expression.

 

The Stiles next to Derek places his head in his hands, and sobs, loudly, into his palms. Missing the conversation John is having with young Stiles.

 

“Stanisław, if you eat all your peas when we get home I’ll consider getting you a dog when the baby is bigger,” John bargains with his son as he drives along the main road, through the center of town.

 

Little Stiles stops crying and pops up in his seat, which causes Derek to smile when he demands, “A bigger dog than that butthead Jackson’s?”

 

“Sure,” John rolls his eyes despite the fact his tone is fond.

 

“I’ma eat all the peas!” Little hands mime shoving peas into the mouth Stiles has stretched wide, and Claudia’s laugh explodes out of her throat. It is such a Stiles thing to do that it causes Derek to hold his breath, mesmerized. She’s beautiful, wild, free, and so very much like the Stiles he knows. Silently, Derek thanks Stiles’s mother for being born. For giving so much of her self to her son.

 

The screen fades to black and Derek stands, wondering if he can fiddle with the film reel to get Stiles’s attention. When he touches the metal stand the projector rests on Stiles releases another unholy wail, causing Derek to jump away from the projector just as the number 2000 appears on the screen.

 

“I sometimes think my hatred killed my siblings,” Stiles whispers, and Derek feels a chill settle in his gut as he approaches where Stiles sits, once more. “I never wanted any. I wanted to have my parents all to myself, and my selfishness broke us.”

 

Stiles looks drawn where he’s sitting. The skin under his eyes so dark from lack of energy that it looks like deep bruising. Derek wants to pull the pain from him, but if he touches anything Stiles lets out screams that could rival Lydia’s. So, once again, he sits beside this poor, horribly lost kid and tries to offer comfort in his silence. Wondering, all the while, how Derek can possibly reach him here—in this place full of dark memories.

 

A hazy flickering scene begins on the screen. John is rousing Stiles, yelling at him to get in his cruiser, and little Stiles bumbles out of bed; following his dad who is holding Claudia in his strong arms. Her long blue nightgown is soaked with the dark, almost black, stain of blood and Derek feels his pulse spike in fear. Is this how Stiles lost his mom? Little Stiles appears as terrified as Derek feels, and hurries into the backseat of his dad’s cruiser. The sirens flip on.

 

From Derek’s left Stiles’s voice is a shock of sound in their charged quiet, and is as sad as it is amused, “I used to beg him to throw on the lights when he’d drive me to school, and he never would while I was in the car. This was the first time.”

 

When they get to the hospital Stiles’s father seems to forget about him, and the poor kid bumbles around in the emergency room, until he finally settles on some seats. Derek watches as Stiles kicks his legs back and forth, little face scrunched in worry when suddenly a familiar voice screams.

 

“Dennis! My son, Dennis! My baby!” Derek’s heart crumples in his chest. There, in Stiles’s memories, is his mother—Talia Hale. Wild with grief as she storms into the hospital, her feet rushing to keep up with the gurney Derek’s eldest sibling is strapped on. Beside him Stiles whispers, “That is still the most heart wrenching sound I’ve ever heard. My soul hurt for that woman, and her children...especially her beautiful, broken, younger son.”

 

Derek sees it then, Little Stiles watching Little-ish him where he sits with Laura. Laura who is singing “The Rooster” along with the nurse’s radio. She hasn’t shed a single tear. Fierce, brave Laura who sits there stoic as she holds Derek. “No, no he ain’t gonna die,” she croons. And Derek remembers—just before he hears it in Stiles’s memory—the earth shattering howl Mom released when Dennis left this world.

 

“Not once in thirteen years,” Derek says, now, in the still auditorium, voice hoarse with emotion, “Not once had I ever seen Laura cry, but she did, right then, when Mom howled.” In the memory she breaks down, holding Derek as tight as she can, and bawls like a frightened child. Derek’s chest hurts as he watches them together—so young and so lost.

 

The memory shifts, a little, and is much clearer, now, on a high-def big-screen as the beautiful sprawling lawn of Derek’s childhood comes into view. Confused, Derek watches as faceless packmates mill about the yard, looking for seats, and up, at a podium is Laura.

 

She’s standing in a regal fashion, like a true Alpha heir. In a fetching black dress with bare feet as she looks into the sea of bodies that once made up the Hale pack. Mom is at Derek’s side, desolate, with bleeding feet and debris in her long, wild hair; remainders of the run she’s just taken. Cora asks Grandmother Ina why Talia’s feet are bloody, and Ina tells her it is because Talia has lost her will to live.

 

“Losing pack is like losing a limb,” he whispers now, beside Stiles, as they both stare at the unfolding memory. “It’s like losing a part of yourself, but Laura...man, Laura was strong. Sometimes, I think she was even stronger than Mom.” With a self-deprecating smile he adds, “I was never meant to be Alpha. I wish she’d never died. Laura is the one who would’ve brought us out of darkness. She was always that shining light in our pack.”

 

He watches as Laura gives her speech. Talking about Dad and Dennis, how they fought, how there was never an Alpha and his heir as stubborn as the two of them. “I love my brother,” she says on the screen, “He was kind, strong, fair, and all the things a future Alpha should be; Dad knew that when he was alive. They were so alike they butted heads as often as possible, but even so Dennis was lost when Dad died. Dennis and I fought a lot, not because we were alike, but because we were siblings. Still it hurts that I lost him, because he was more than my brother—he was _pack_ and that’s why it is hard for us to say goodbye. It is hard for us to lose a bit of ourselves with them, because they were both amazing pieces of this vast puzzle.” Her voice catches, and Derek knows what’s coming. “I went through Dennis’s room when the pack approached me to speak today, and I found his journal from the year Dad passed. They were both dweebs who loved fantasy novels, and apparently Dennis found a quote from one that fit perfectly at the time of Dad’s death, and it works well now, too.” Laura clears her throat, “ _When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives._ " She looks at Derek—who appears so broken beside his mother—and he, once again, feels the burning command of a future Alpha in Laura when she speaks, "We all suffer the loss of my brother, but he is only one of this pack, and we owe it to his memory to remain a strong pack in his absence. I will feel his loss, for as long as my heart beats, but I will not let his death hinder the progression of the Hale pack. He died, be we _will_ survive."

 

Ah, if only that were true, Derek thinks with a sad smile—the Hale pack survived as long as a single snowflake survives on the surface of the sun. Derek is all that is left of a dead legacy.

 

Beside him now, Stiles sobs, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Derek snaps out of staring up at the memory of his amazing older sister, and turns to look at Stiles; hoping for some sign of acknowledgment. Only Stiles is still staring blankly at the screen, tears rolling down his pale, mole dotted cheeks. When Derek turns back to look at the TV it’s been replaced with the old projector and banged up screen; the memories no longer his.

 

At his side Stiles speaks, “I didn’t understand. I was too little to realize.”

 

Derek wants to ask what he means, but he knows Stiles won’t hear him so he watches a young, naive Stiles listen as John chokes over his own tongue, tears shining in his blue eyes, while he tells Stiles there won’t be any babies.

 

“Mom had a baby in her belly,” Stiles says pointing to his own childish stomach. “In here. She told me.”

 

John swallows hard, and Derek can see now that the pain is what began those crows feet at the corners of John’s vibrant eyes. “Stanisław,” John whispers, “The babies were sick, and they couldn’t stay in Mom’s tummy.”

 

Little Stiles has a wrinkle of confusion between his thick eyebrows, and his mouth turns down in a moue for a long while before he says, “It’s okay, Daddy, I don’t need a dog anymore, I promise.” His small hand pats John’s shoulder, “Tell Mommy she can stop having sick babies. I can share you.” John cries, loud and unashamed, and Derek swallows at a lump in his throat when he sees how tightly John clings to his young son. As if Stiles’s innocent love and naivety can cure the world of all ails. When Claudia enters and asks what’s the matter Stiles repeats his words, and then she joins John; crying and clinging to her only child.

 

“I love you, sweet boy,” Stiles, at Derek’s left, says along with the mother of his memories. A little sob leaves him, “She said those words to me all the time, and I’d give anything to hear her say them to me again, anything.” His smile is sad, “Just like I would’ve given anything then to make her and Dad stop crying.” After another sigh he adds, “A week later, I had a Great Dane puppy; that victory has always felt bitter sweet.”

 

The memory shifts to a later time and John is on the phone, his face sad as he watches Stiles in the living room with his new puppy. “I’m telling you, Carol, we’re not risking trying again. Claudia nearly died the last time. Doc says there’s something wrong with her parts, and that we were lucky we had Stanisław when we did.”

 

Beside Derek Stiles says, “Dad didn’t think I was listening, but I was always listening, and I wanted to make Mom better so I did like my namesake told me. I prayed. I prayed and prayed and prayed.” On screen many different versions of little Stiles are flickering across the screen, all beneath his window, kneeling on a pillow, with his too large head bowed. “Eventually, I figured out there are just some things prayers can’t fix.”

 

As the scene fades Derek settles back in his chair, beside Stiles, and when the number 2002 appears he’s flooded with immediate pain.

 

“Two-thousand and two was the beginning of the downward spiral for me,” Derek says, not expecting Stiles to hear, and the screen changes again from the old worn screen to a high-def television. Derek doesn’t have the will to ponder how he’s controlling memories in a place only Stiles should be able to control. Paige is there, on screen—halting all cognitive ability. With her ivory skin, long dark hair, rich brown eyes, and that little kiss of beauty just beneath one of her eyes; she will always beautiful to him.

 

“That was the year I first fell in love.” Derek swallows, and narrates, for Stiles, his first encounter with Paige in the music room. He details her scent, “Warm vanilla and sugar—like freshly baked cookies. Every time I caught her scent it was like…shit, I can’t even explain.” She laughs on screen then, and younger-Derek leans closer to kiss her. She’s willing; nervous and shy but willing to have him touch her. He remembers the thrill her clumsiness used to fill him with, and is suddenly terrified that Stiles will see. He doesn’t want anyone to know, especially not Stiles, and so he tries to turn it off—tries to call the memories back, but they grow louder and clearer as the seconds tick by.

 

There’s Peter, egging him on, telling him to go to Ennis, and there’s Derek foolish enough to listen. “I was an idiot,” he says now, “I was so insecure, so fucking afraid to be alone, and…” he trails off, swallowing when he sees Paige with her side bleeding black, on the school’s stairs, from Ennis’s bite.

 

He goes limp in his seat, too numb to cry while he watches as his young self draws Paige’s pain away, for days, pulling the agony into himself until he’s reached his limit. “I was so weak.” Derek whispers, “I barely hesitated when she told me to kill her.” He releases a choked sound when his claws itch at the memory of piercing her soft flesh, and his palms tingle from the cool trickle of her blood.

 

“You didn’t hesitate because you loved her, and she appreciated it,” Stiles whispers at his side. Later, when Derek finally brings himself to look up, Stiles is staring diligently at the screen where it has gone back to one of Stiles’s memories.

 

That prick Jackson is in an ice cream parlor, standing by Stiles and calling him a faggot and a number of other unsavory things while Stiles sits, silent, crying into his sundae. Stiles’s grief in the memory is so evident Derek can taste it on his tongue now, and the bitter taste makes him grimace.

 

“Jackson wouldn’t leave me alone since I started crying in class. He said I was a fag and a shithead and a pussy because I started crying when we watched _Bambi_.” Derek frowns and turns, looking as Stiles’s current self begins shaking and swallows while he watches a humiliating memory. “I was crying because Bambi’s mom died, and it was right after I heard my dad telling my aunt Mom’s diagnosis wasn’t looking too good. So after school I thought I’d cheer myself up with ice cream, but he followed me and made it worse. He’s always been a douche.”

 

Derek doesn’t want to watch Stiles’s humiliation at the hands of Jackson, but does because this is somehow needed to further understand Stiles. When he looks back at the screen he sees a very brooding version of himself enter the ice cream shop, and he can’t recall this at all so he perks up in his seat as he watches his younger self approach the counter. At first it seems like he’s going to be one of those dicks who ignores the bullying happening right in front of him; truth be told Derek’s never been a saint, and so he wouldn’t put it past himself. But as the minutes pass his younger self finally snaps and reaches out to grab that tool, Jackson, by the arm.

 

“Fuck off, twerp, the kid doesn’t need a shit like you messing with him so get outta here.” Derek’s growling into Jackson’s young face, and it is only slightly amusing that Jackson was scared of Derek before Derek had facial hair and a hard body.

 

Jackson looks terrified enough to drop a load in his pants and skitters out of there faster than Derek’s seen Laura chase a deer. Derek, in Stiles’s memory, rolls his eyes—as he does now in the auditorium’s hard, wooden seat. “You should’ve decked him.” Stiles in the memory ignores young Derek’s words, and suddenly Derek’s mind must pick up on the memory because the high-def television is back and words are stumbling out of his mouth before his brain can catch up.

 

“You were the scent,” he declares. “I’d smelled it for years, at random times. In the diner, at the park, everywhere, and I could never place where it came from until this exact moment.” Derek feels stunned as he watches his young self flounder, internally, over what to say to make the kid beside him talk.

 

Derek, on screen, pulls a twenty out of his wallet and places it on the counter when a server walks by. “I’ll have two root beer floats, and I’m paying for whatever this kid wants.”

 

Stiles finally looks at Derek in the memory and nods when Derek asks if he’d like one of the root beer floats.

 

“I didn’t know why, back then,” Derek whispers in awe. “I don’t know why I wanted you to quit being sad, why I wanted to be the one to make you smile and talk. All I knew then was that you smelled like wild jasmine and honeysuckle in the summer time, and every time I caught that scent it felt like coming home.” As an afterthought he adds, “You still smell like coming home.”

 

In the memory Stiles finally tells Derek about _Bambi_ , and Derek tells him not to worry about it. Not long after, just before they part ways Stiles asks for his name, “Derek Hale,” his younger self says with a half smile. As if he’s some kind of badass. “Take care, kid.”

 

“Bye, Derek.”

 

“If you’d been my age and if you’d have come along before Paige, I’d have never even noticed her,” Derek whispers when the scene fades to black and for the first time since this began Stiles snorts softly at Derek’s side.

 

 

Two-thousand and three flickers across the old screen and there’s young Stiles sitting in the principal’s office, his skinny leg bouncing nervously as he gnaws on his bottom lip. John comes in, exhausted looking, apologizing as the old principal stands to shake his hand.

 

“That’s the year they diagnosed me with ADHD,” Stiles whispers beside him, “Dad didn’t need the extra stress. This is when Mom started getting bad.”

 

It changes from the principal telling John that Stiles is constantly disruptive to a scene of John staring at Claudia with a miserable expression on his face. She’s nude beneath a woolen blanket, with wild hair full of leaves, and there is a feral expression on her face as John touches her shoulder.

 

“Claudia,” he whispers, reverent and grateful, as he pulls her into an embrace. “What where you thinking?”

 

“Didn’t you see, John?” Her voice is different, half-mad, “I ran through the fire.” It makes no sense to Derek and John looks equally lost on the screen. “I ran through the fire,” she screams, looking terrified.

 

Stiles’s memory shifts and he’s in the front of his father’s cruiser. Eyes on his lap, and through the front window Derek sees his own younger self brooding, alone, on a seat in one of the buses heading towards the high school.

 

He recognizes the shirt he’s wearing, and his own memories steal the stage, “Fuck,” he mutters as he watches himself enter Beacon Hills High. All around the loud whispers of gossip are amplified in this auditorium: …dead from an animal attack…so young…do you think he’s alright… He tries to block it out, now, and on screen, but they are just so loud. The scents of their pity are thick—cloying like an old person’s home. Full of bitter dying smells, and Derek hates it. In his seat now he feels his claws pop as the rush of his wolf pumps feral within his veins. Beside him Stiles’s hand is warm on his hand; suddenly the wild flutter of his heart begins to slow, and when he looks back to the screen it’s not his life. It’s Stiles. A bright smile on his young face as he sits with an older black deputy who is teaching him how to pick locks.

 

John is on the phone a few desks over, talking in quiet tones with a doctor. “Yes, yes, I understand. Mhmm, her sister is up; keeping an eye on her. I’ve got Stanisław with me. She scared him the other day, with a knife.” He trails off, a distant pained expression adding lines to his handsome face, “I can’t trust her with him,” John finally admits, and Derek notices the slight wince young Stiles makes, however it is unnoticeable to the untrained eye.

 

The night is late, darkness is heavy beyond the windows of the sheriff’s station, and little Stiles is bent over some printer paper with crayons and pencils. It looks to be a crudely drawn version of Darth Vader, and Derek smiles as he watches little Stiles put his tongue between his teeth while he concentrates. Stiles glances up from his art when a rowdy group of teenagers bumble into the station. A few deputies stone-faced behind them as they lead the group to the hard wooden benches along the wall. Most of the boys are yelling profanities; a couple brave enough to call one of the deputies a fucking pig while the others egg him on with their laughter. Derek recognizes them instantly. There’s Joseph, Darrel, and Cole from his lacrosse team; the memory becomes clearer as Derek recalls this exact moment of his life.

 

He’s the only one of the group sitting in silence. His face is pinched, barely concealed rage evident in the tense set of his shoulders. “Damn, I nearly forgot how angry I was,” Derek sighs now. Sad thing is he’s still angry, only now it is anger for himself not the rest of the world.

 

Stiles, beside him, says, “I was totally drawn to your bitch face.” Little Stiles is staring at Derek from his spot on the floor. Brown eyes wide and mesmerized, and Derek shakes his head a little at the expression while the teenage version of himself smirks knowingly at the poor kid. “You changed a lot in a year; didn’t recognize you with all those broad muscles wrapped in golden skin, and that scruff should’ve been damn illegal,” Stiles laughs, then with a somber expression, adds, “Though it was those eyes that pinned me to the spot. The color of sea-glass, but occasionally they’d flash electric blue.”

 

Derek watches as his eyes do exactly that, and he notes how young Stiles doesn’t so much as flinch; if anything the foolish child leans closer. Not much has changed about Stiles over the years either.

 

The older black deputy approaches then, and young Derek directs his attention to the man. "Anything you've got to say for yourself before we call your mother? "

 

The smile Derek wears is downright cocky. He can tell it pisses the deputy off. With a huff the man stomps off, and Derek sits in brooding silence as he waits for his mother to arrive. Purposefully avoiding the avid staring of young Stiles from across the room.

 

"Vandalizing school property, Derek James Hale?" When Derek looks up, at the sound of her much missed voice, he can tell his mother is livid. Sure enough when he stands to give her an asshole answer she slaps him so hard his head whips to the left.

 

His younger self licks the blood from the split in his lip, laughs, and in a jab of cruelty calls her a tired old bitch. Her face crumples, and he wants her hatred, in that moment; not the sorrow she's saturating the room with.

 

Derek casts a last look at young Stiles and remembers hating how disappointed he smells. “I wish I would’ve reached for the obvious hand she offered instead of slapping it away as often as I could.” He wonders, now, as he often has if things would be different if Derek had let Talia in to save him.

 

Two Thousand and Four whispers across the still high-def screen, and Derek closes his eyes when he hears the familiar, overly played song of his youth.

 

"Uhh, I like it like that, she working that back

I don't know how to act slow motion for me

Slow motion for me, slow motion for me, move in slow motion for me

 

I'm a dick thrower, her neck and her back hurting

Cut throat will have her like a brand new virgin

It's like when she gets used of it, then you start serving

 

Hop on top and start jiggy-jiggy jerking

Slow down for me, you moving too fast

My fingers keep slipping, I'm trying to grip that ass…"

 

Derek’s in the back of some blonde's truck, rutting into her like the selfish horny little fuck he was back then—like the horny selfish fuck he is now. Beneath her skin he can recall, faintly, the pulse of her heart as it beats faster while her excitement grows. He remembers finishing before her. He tells Stiles about it now, “I knew she didn’t come. Peter always said it was a heady, intoxicating scent; one I’d crave like a drug once I’d had it. I also remember Laura saying Peter was a creepy pervert, but she wasn’t exactly a blushing virgin.”

 

Young Derek doesn't care as he lights a joint and sits with his naked body exposed to the night. Now he fidgets, uncomfortable in his seat because he knows Stiles is watching. The girl in his memory is talking to him, in a flirtatious voice, and he remembers his jaded self found the sound to be too nasally and nerve grating.

 

He only needs a few more minutes to recover, “Oh to be young again,” his current self laughs sardonically, and young Derek has her ride him. Shutting up her annoying words with sloppy kisses.

 

Derek speaks in the silence, explaining to Stiles about the dark place he was in, telling him about the drugs. The desire to escape his head, and his frustration with not being able to experience the mind-numbing high his friends bragged about when they experimented recreationally. On the screen he leaves another party stone cold sober and sighs as he starts walking towards the preserve.

 

A silver Beetle convertible pulls up beside him, and Derek sucks in a hissing breath while he watches the hot blonde she-devil ask his stupid youthful self if he'd like a ride. He says yes, and Derek groans, “No, you idiot, don’t go with that bitch.”

 

They wind up parking in a dark alley, behind one of the old shopping malls in downtown Beacon Hill,s and he grits his teeth as he watches her tell his younger self her name; then watches as his younger self looks terrified when Kate tells him she knows what he is. Derek is about to bolt, but her voice roots stops him when she adds, "I know how to get you high."

 

That's how Derek gets into wolfsbane laced cocaine, and he really gets into doing lines off the lips of her cunt before eating her out until she gets frustrated and rides his cock with a brutal pace. It's ridiculously hot; Kate’s strength, and the way she commands him to fuck her harder and demands he bite her. Derek, with a twist of self-disgust worming around his stomach remembers loving the angry red welts on her skin.

 

“I spent everyday with her. Kate said she was a trust fund baby. She kept me high; numb, you know? And she fucked like a wet dream. It was easier to be that person than to try and salvage the person I used to be…you know, before Paige.” He swallows and barely registers the warmth on his forearm, from Stiles’s long fingers, as he stares up at the screen—mesmerized by the beginning of what he knows is the end.

 

Derek quits school, and his mom is beyond fighting him about it; on screen he sees her worn expression and notices how she grips her whiskey glass too tight. Laura comes around to see him sometime after he’s moved from the house—into Kate’s place. Her face wild with anger when he opens the door to Kate’s apartment. She breaks a concrete wall with the weight of his body and snaps the bone in his arm easily.

 

"You're fucking pathetic," she shouts and Derek doesn't try to fight her back; his seventeen-year-old self is done with everything. "Say something, Derek!" And it's the second time he sees Laura cry; first she cried because she lost Dennis, she cries then because she is losing him.

 

“Stupid boy,” Derek whispers, swallowing around the lump in his throat, “Why didn’t you follow her home?”

 

She leaves the new house key, a gesture of goodwill, and tells him the new pass code for the alarms. He sobs when he says, “I should’ve never left that information out for Kate to find. I should’ve known what she was.”

 

 

Beside him a voice whispers to him a story, words full of emotion, “My dad started leaving me with our old neighbor. She used to smack me in the head with her paper and call me a liar. You know, I was like ten, dude, and when she started telling me my dad hated me and blamed me for Mom being sick—I—I began to believe her.” A loud sniff is wet against Derek’s ear and there are two warm arms around his shoulders but he allows it when Stiles continues, “I knew it wasn’t true—but I was a kid, and knowing doesn’t always outweigh the believing.” On the screen Derek sees young Stiles, with heavy bruising beneath his eyes from stress and lack of sleep. He goes into the elementary, sits himself down at his little desk next to a still lovely yet younger version of Lydia. “She never knew me, and she’ll probably never know that it was her smile and laughter that got me through those dark days. So long as she was in the world I knew I could survive.”

 

 

Their memories collide; making the screen half old and half new. Derek can see what happens to them both; at damn near the same time. It was May he remembers, just as Stiles confirms that with his words. Breath moist where it tickles against Derek’s neck. He remembers it happening when the final chill of winter had left with spring; when the nights became warm enough for late swims, and it wasn’t the time of year when a family should be massacred in their sleep. Nor was it the kind of weather that perfectly reflected the loss a young, emotionally unstable boy was about to experience. Derek hated it then and still hates it now.

 

Stiles is with her when she dies; Derek sees it, and his heart breaks as he watches it happen. Claudia is holding his hand, her grip tight enough to bring a red tinge to her white knuckles. Her voice is soft but strong when she speaks, “I love you more than anything, forever, until the sun crashes into the earth, and even then I will still love you." She touches his wet cheek, and says, "Take care of your daddy for me." Stiles promises he will, and a breath later she is gone. The machine flat-lining as Stiles stands there staring at her pale, still face. He doesn't cry once the doctors come in; Stiles looks numb as he is ushered out of the room while they try, in vain, to revive her.

 

“That’s when I learned what it meant to be lonely and disappointed. I remember sitting there with this heavy cape of those feelings on my shoulders, asking myself if this is what Batman felt like.” Stiles’s words are broken by the small gasps between his tears, “I was just a kid.” Derek thinks he’s still just a kid, but doesn’t say that as he turns in his seat and wraps an arm around Stiles’s waist. It fills him with surprise when Stiles doesn’t jerk away from the hold screaming. He hugs him tighter, now, like he wishes he could the littler version; the one sitting with his wet face buried in the palms of his hands, shaking with grief.

 

Derek’s memory is full of vibrant fire. Flames licking the walls of a home that he always thought was safe. Derek’s younger self is running towards it; uncaring of the heat. He looks ready to welcome death. His voice is shrill as he screams, a garble of words he still can’t understand, and an unfortunate fireman tries to stop him, but the Derek on screen easily bucks him off.

 

Laura’s the one catching him around the waist. With a steady voice, full of Alpha command she tells him to calm down. Even still he struggles in the iron hold.

 

All of the family are pulled out, and Derek rides with his mother and Laura to the hospital. She's covered in soot and her heart is flickering faintly. In the auditorium the sound is loud, and he feels tears slide down his cheeks as he listens to the familiar lull of Talia’s heartbeat.

 

He can't focus on anything but her. When they push her into the emergency room on her gurney he hangs onto her hand. Her grip is weak, and he keeps praying to anyone to spare her; take him instead. Of all the people he knows he is the least deserving of life, and even now Derek still believes the gods should’ve taken him.

 

Right before they make him leave her she opens her brown eyes and whispers, "I forgive you, and I love you, forever, my pup." He feels Stiles’s tears on his shoulder, and smiles faintly when he rubs his wet nose against Derek’s shoulder. He wants to thank him for crying for him, but he’s suddenly lost his voice and allows his memories to sweep him away.

 

When Talia's gone he stands there and screams as he punches a hole in the sheetrock. Laura gives him a disappointed look and tells the manager of of the E.R. she will pay for the damages. Derek doesn’t seem to care.

 

He goes to the waiting room, and a young kid is there smelling of saline and despair. Derek doesn't know why but he sits next to him, and a moment later wide amber eyes pin their glistening stare on Derek’s face.

 

"My mom just died," he whispers in a small, broken voice, and Derek swallows as his own hurt rises to surface.

 

"So did mine," he admits with a scratchy tone. He doesn't say so will the rest of his family because he can't handle that thought. One death at a time.

 

"She told me to take care of my dad, " he whispers small and frightened.

"You'll be alright." Derek looks as awkward as he sounds; trying to reassure some kid he doesn’t know.

 

"How the hell do you know that? You don't know a damn thing about me!" He finds the defiance amusing and shocking. For one so small he sure is tough.

 

"I'm Derek, " he says in response, "What's your name?"

 

“Stanisław."

 

"Erm…,” Derek mutters and gives the kid a once over. He’s wearing the oddest combination of clothes—Batman graphic t-shirt, flannel over shirt, ripped up jeans, and neon tennis shoes. This funny looking kid probably thinks he’s awesome and so a name springs to mind. One Derek won’t butcher horribly. “I'll just call you Stiles," Derek says with a shrug, "Since whatever that was is a mouthful." Stiles doesn't argue, in fact, he looks pleased; or as pleased as he can considering the circumstances.

 

They talk of random things; mostly Stiles rambles and Derek listens. He doesn't ask where Stiles's father is; a good guess says he's a cop and is on the job. So this poor kid knows his mom is dead and has no one with him. Derek can't imagine being that alone; at least he still has Laura with him.

 

It's a quarter to two in the morning. A lot of the pack is still unstable; though Mom is for sure gone. Derek felt the shift in power, and was glad for Stiles’s distracting theories about what's going to happen in the sixth installment of Harry Potter. Derek’s never been much of a Potter fan so he just hums at appropriate times.

 

The nurse sitting at the front desk looks half asleep as she reaches over to turn up the radio. And he hears the beginning of Laura’s new favorite song.

 

"I'm not a perfect person

There's many things I wish I didn't do

But I continue learning

I never meant to do those things to you

And so I have to say before I go

That I just want you to know

 

I've found a reason for me

To change who I used to be

A reason to start over new

And the reason is you…"

 

Stiles hums along to the tune and Derek half smiles at him; it's funny how one strange kid can calm him down so much. When Stiles's father comes hurrying in Derek gives the poor kid a sad smile and says, "See you around, Stiles."

 

"Bye," Stiles whispers in a small voice.

 

Not long after Stiles disappears, with his dad, down one of the halls, Laura comes to tell him only Peter survived, but he's in a vegetative state.

 

2005

 

Derek doesn't see Kate after the fire, and he doesn't doubt that she set the flame. Or, at the very least, tipped some hunters off about them. He tries not to care; tries to pretend he didn't care about her and that it was all about the drugs. But some nights, even after knowing what she's done, Derek finds himself missing her presence. Sometimes he laughs about how fucked he's become, but most of the time the truth sends him into a flying rage.

 

Laura sets Peter up in an assisted living place after the investigations. When the life insurance as well as their packs' net earnings, bonds, stock, and all other sources of income are placed in her name. Residual fear from the fire has her writing up a will the same day as she takes possession of the Hale fortune; leaving it's entirety to Derek in the event of her death. They leave a copy in the Hale vault the night it’s finalized, and Derek grounds himself in her presence when they enter the room full of Mom’s lingering scent.

 

She blames Peter, and Derek lets her despite his guilt willing him to tell her the truth. Laura always said Peter was a snake and Derek's content to let her believe this was a botched assassination attempt that backfired on him. Even if he recovers, Laura will never believe him over Derek. That truth comforts even as it fills Derek with guilt.

 

After the will is locked away; Laura loads up her shiny new red Dodge Viper with what little remains after the fire: their mother’s claws, some smoke scented photos that are charred at the edges, and her limited amount of clothing. Derek has Dad’s leather jacket; for once Laura doesn't try to fight him for it.

 

Laura heads East, and neither of them chances a glance behind; that life is gone now.

 

He dreams about Stiles, hears a deeper version of his voice narrating the scene in his head. A scene in which Stiles starts having panic attacks and his dad isn’t home anymore. When he is John comes in smelling like cheap whiskey. Their once homey house is covered in trash with piles of laundry all around, and the dishes in the sink are growing a new form of bacteria. The situation escalates when Stiles’s teachers start asking questions, and he goes home in a panic after school.

 

“In time I’d become a budgeting guru, but I did the best I could at eleven with the three hundred bucks I stole from Dad’s wallet that day,” the comforting voice whispers through Derek’s mind.

 

Young Stiles cleans the dishes, gagging as thick films of grease and mold slide over his wet fingers, “I used to think about jumping out of my window,” Stiles confesses in his dream. “I’d look out of it and would imagine one of those huge tree branches shoving through the middle of my stomach. I wanted to welcome sweet death; it was so hard then, taking care of everything, but I grew into it. Learned to deal, because as much as it sucked; I didn’t really want to die, and I didn’t want to lose my dad.”

 

Derek wakes up, thousands of miles away from Beacon Hills, and opens the window of his and Laura’s apartment—wondering how freeing it would be to splatter himself on the pavement from twelve stories up. The city is too loud, the smells stifling, and the loneliness here is like a cancer that can't be cut away.

 

 

“In O-six I met Scott. We kinda bonded over alcoholic dads.” In his dream he sees Stiles with a kid of twelve; he’s got deep brown eyes and a crooked tan jaw. Stiles’s dad is loudly laughing with another guy, a tall man with dark hair and equally dark eyes. “It was nice to have someone around who didn’t always stink of whiskey with a splash of Old English.”

 

 

Derek takes a job bouncing at a seedy club on Avenue A, and starts fucking anything with a pulse each night while riding an ecstasy high. One such evening he brings his current bit of strange home. Laura shows up, unexpectedly; finding this piece of tail with her hands around Derek’s throat. Before he can stop her Laura has already snapped his nameless partner’s neck and Derek is quickly coming off of his high. Killing humans is sobering apparently.

 

He dreams in the car, Stiles’s dad is talking to a woman Derek can vaguely recall from Beacon Hills Memorial. “Melissa told dad Rafe nearly killed Scott while on a bender. Shoved him so hard down the stairs his head left a dent in the wood. It was the first time I saw dad dump a new bottle of Jack down the sink.” In the dream John does just that and after he pulls Stiles into a bone crushing hug. “It was the first hug we shared since Mom died,” Stiles’s voice floats through his sleep.

 

Derek is shaken awake when Laura stops her car near the dump. She hisses at him to follow, and he does so reluctantly after he climbs out of the passenger side of the car. Derek feels sick roll in his belly at the sight of this lifeless woman, but Laura appears blank-faced as she hoists the cold form over her shoulder. She commands Derek to find a spot, and when he does they leave the body buried in a place they are sure no one will ever find it.

 

Once they stop, miles and miles away from the scene of their crime, she pulls Derek close, wraps him in a tight hug, and breathes him deep where her face is pressed into his neck. Then she speaks to him in his mother’s native tongue. Voicing the words she’s not uttered since her eyes took the red. “Tu es carne de mi carne, sangre de mi sangre, hueso de mis huesos, mi familia y mi vida.” Derek repeats her words, and she bites him on the shoulder. A mark of ownership, a bond of brotherhood, a symbol of _pack_.

 

 

“I started Dad on his diet in o-seven, he hated it, of course, but I think he accepted it because he understood I needed the control. I had to do it; anything to keep him with me longer.” Derek sees a thirteen-year-old Stiles in his dreams shoving tofu burgers at John, and John bitching while having a fondness gleaming in his blue eyes. It’s obvious to Derek that this man loves his son.

 

 

Laura and Derek are thick as thieves, now. Like they were before the fire, before Kate, before Paige. She laughs at Derek’s annoyance when random women and men fawn over him; stinking up bars with the cloying scent of lust. She bails him out, on the rare occasion, and pretends to be his offended girlfriend. Usually, though, she’s content to let him try, and fail, to politely decline. Derek doesn’t have a polite bone left in him, and Laura finds it hilarious. Derek, in turn, mocks her tastes in music. Laura’s all about whatever’s popular and catchy on the radio. Derek is damn tired of her trying to convince him Nickelback is music. “It is totally NOT music, Laura,” he argues over coffee, one wintry afternoon, and she brandishes the little green plastic stopper at him, like a sword as she declares that those are fighting words.

 

He judges her dates when they come to pick her up, intimidates them with his bulked up form and pissed off stare (even though she can STILL kick Derek’s ass). Then when they don’t pan out Derek indulges her by sitting through hours of _Moulin Rouge_ , _Titanic_ , _Ever After_ , and _The Fox and the Hound_. Derek gets revenge when he makes her endure _Supernatural_. She bitches it is totally unrealistic, and full of incestuous subtext. When she gets on those kicks Derek cocks a disbelieving eyebrow and says, “And how is _Twilight_ any better than this? At least _Supernatural_ is interesting.”

 

“Jacob Black, Derek, _Jacob Black_. He is what I wanted in high school. Why couldn’t he have existed then?” Her sigh is wistful, and he fake gags at her expense.

 

“You’re disgusting.”

 

“You’re jealous he pulls off brooding werewolf bad-boy and you don’t.” His response is throwing a pillow at her face.

 

 

“We do geek night, every week, without fail since Dad’s sobriety. It’s tradition.” In Derek’s dream Stiles is sitting on a pile of blankets and pillows with wide excited eyes as _Star Wars: Return of the Jedi_ plays across the television screen. “I tried to get Scott to join, but he was being an angst bucket over his parents’ divorce, and I totally understood. Besides, I’ll never tell Scott, but even though he’s a blasphemous heathen who has never seen the Wars of the Stars I really like having Dad all to myself. He lets me recite all the lines to all the films and never says anything. Not even now. Sure he tells me to shut up, like, every ten minutes, but it’s fond sounding and even though it’s not great without Mom it can be good. Dad and I, we can get through it, you know?”

 

 

“In o-eight, when I was about fourteen, it started getting easier. It was back to boring, and I was totally cool with that.” Stiles’s deep voice whispers through his mind, and Derek smiles at his words. He can’t explain it, but for some reason the voice comforts him.

 

 

Derek lets Laura drag him to the midnight release of _Breaking Dawn_ (”For the record, Laura, I am the best brother _ever.”_ ), and he’s in a room full of hormonal women ranging from twelve to their late fifties. It’s a **nightmare** as he tries to move to browse through the horror section at Barnes and Noble. Laura, of course, is having none of it and is going crazy with the crowd. She keeps trying to get Derek to join in the “fun”. He finds it amusing when Laura and some hipster teen get into an argument over which is the cooler mythical creature: vampires or werewolves (one guess who Laura’s rooting for). Derek, to fuck with them both, argues that the Selkie is the best mythical humanoid creature.

 

Later, Laura smacks him with her new copy of her shitty book and yells that he is a traitor to his kind. The comment hurts more than Derek will ever tell her, and hits very close to home.

 

He tries to be offended over his experience, but mostly he’s confused and upset over one theme all the foolish girls in the place were cooing about. One true loves, and shit, and how awesome it would be if _real boys_ imprinted on the ones they were meant to be with forever, like werewolves. Derek asks her about it the next day.

 

“Is there a such thing as a wolf’s mate?” Because just maybe _real werewolf boys_ do imprint on people.

 

Laura looks really sad when she shakes her head, “Mom said when she was growing up—in Colombia, before Dad took her and Ina from the Díaz pack—she said Grandmother Ina would tell her stories. Some featuring la pequena capilla roja y lobo de plata, and how when that wolf saw her he just **knew**. He knew because, for the first time, he felt complete. As if there was the soul fragment he was looking for. There was also the story of the one soul with two bodies. And how there is a call for wolves that only their mates can create.” She shrugs, a considering look on her face after her winded rambling—Laura always rambles but Derek finds it comforting. “The vitam consortem was a more depressing story than capilla roja. It’s a very old translation with the gist of two souls suffering, together, before they meet—in similar ways—and even after they finally meet they still suffer.”

 

“Seems pointless,” Derek says with a frown, remembering Vitam Consortem was always his least favorite of the fables Mom told them, “Isn’t the point of a soul-mate to make one whole?”

 

Laura laughs, “No, idiot, there is no point—and that was the point of the legend. The soul suffers before it knows love, and will continue to suffer during love, and even after—it only hurts _less_ while they are together.”

 

“Was Dad Mom’s mate?” He asks, hours later after the subject has long grown cold.

 

“She said he was the closest she’d ever been to whole, but I don’t think theirs was a cosmic coupling, and neither did mom. How much would it suck if we knew there was only one mate for us, and we spent our lives miserable because we’d never been fortunate enough to find them? I’m totally cool with being normal, for once, thanks. I don’t need perfect. I need real.” Laura shrugs and goes back to her coffee while Derek dresses for his daily run and they let the matter drop.

 

Later that night they drink Blue Moon laced with wolfsbane and look at the full moon through the smoggy clouds hovering around the city. Laura makes a sassy comment about the irony of wolves drinking the moon beneath the moon and Derek calls her an idiot. She laughs and he smiles at the freeness of the sound. He doesn’t need love; not ever. He’s got Laura, and he knows she will never, ever hurt him the way love already has.

 

In his dream that night, Derek sees Stiles crying into one of his battered couch pillows. Snot running down and dripping over his lips as he stares at the screen. _The Notebook_ is playing on an old tube television and the line “You are, and always have been, my dream,” sounds loud in Derek’s ears.

 

“I wasn’t crying for them, Noah and Allie, you know,” Stiles’s voice narrates over the dream, “I was crying for my parents. I wondered if their love was that deep, that raw, that powerful, and strong enough to survive anything—even death.”

 

John is there, in the room with Stiles, a little later and is staring at his son, checking him over with a desperation Derek thinks is excessive given the situation, but then again he’s never been a father.

 

“What happened,” John is demanding, and Stiles starts wailing again, harder, as he clings to his dad’s tan uniform shirt.

 

When he calms enough to get a few words out Stiles asks, “What’s it like to lose the love of your life, Daddy?”

 

John looks like he’s been kicked in the balls, or somewhere deeper, a place more raw, and Derek winces in his sleep. Recovering quickly, John shakes his head and whispers, “It’s like losing a vital piece of your soul, son.”

 

Stiles’s sobbing renews—just as violent and messy as before; Derek wants to reach into his dream to comfort him. He must say this aloud because narrator Stiles says, “Shh, I’m fine now, Derek.”

 

“Are you going to love Mom forever, Dad?” Stiles sniffles in the dream, and holds tight to his father.

 

John looks uncomfortable when he begins to speak. “You know, son, not all love is like they show it in movies, in books, on television, and in songs. It’s hard work, and it’s more trouble than some people think it’s worth. And despite what many say; it’s hardly eternal.” Stiles looks at him with a miserable expression but John, with soft eyes, adds, “That being said; what I felt, what I _feel_ , for your mother will never be lessened as one year turns to many. I know most people will tell you that soulmates aren’t real, but I can tell you now, son, Claudia was mine.”

 

 

Laura starts digging into the fire, and soon her random interest turns to obsession. Derek doesn’t like coming home to the moue of her mouth; hates the spicy scent of her anger as it mixes with the sharp tang of her sorrow. He comes home most days to Laura bent over an old file muttering beneath her breath while scratching memos into the margins of a notebook. During those nights Derek prays; with all that he has that she won't leave him, too.

 

"Things are good now," Derek pleads with the murky nightly skyline, desperately wishing he could see the moon, "I can't lose her, too. Please, please, don't leave me alone."

 

That evening when he dreams of Stiles he’s sitting in what he assumes is Stiles’s bedroom and Stiles is looking out the window, at the moon Derek couldn’t see earlier in the night.

 

He prays for his dad's safety, and Derek’s heart hurts when he notices the silent tear sneaking its way off of Stiles’s long lashes.

 

"Whoever is out there, if you're real, don't let anything happen to my dad. Shit's good now, and we both know things like to go belly up on me when life is peaceful, but not him…please not my dad."

 

 

September 5th 2011 Laura leaves, after a huge fight, in which Derek tells her he won’t stand by her if she goes back to Beacon Hills. He says she's no longer his Alpha if she walks out of their apartment—it’s a bluff she calls, staring him down with cold red eyes before she storms out. Derek sags against the sofa when her angry steps fade, and he puts his face in his hands. _Please,_ he prays again, _please not Laura._

 

A week later he senses her presence has gone. Derek’s eyes flash blue as his claws and fangs drop without his permission. Fear carries him to LaGaurdia and mounts in Derek all the way to the airport in Beacon Landing, the town thirty minutes North of Beacon Hills, in Beacon County. He buys a car with the black American Express Laura gave him for his previous birthday; it's the first time he's used it and he wants her to be okay so she can make fun of him for taking so long to use their money. Derek’s first purchase takes him home, and he leaves it near the shell of their old house, not bothering to look upon the rot there. He follows his nose to find her. Same as he had when they’d play tag in youth. Only now he finds her torso—left like garbage under rotting leaves on a dark forest floor. Derek howls for hours, in agony, and rage after he falls to his knees—clutching her cold body to him. Breathing her in despite the fact her scent is heavy with decay. Derek searches all night for her lower half, among all the familiar trails he once knew intimately, but gives up at dawn, and takes her torso to bury beneath a wolfsbane spiral. He's home, and whoever did this will pay. He'll kill them for stealing his sister's life and her Alpha power. He’ll destroy them for taking his last piece of happiness.

 

He has nothing worth living for. Now what he needs is to fall into his rage. Let it consume him and drown beneath it; become the monster that can avenge every evil he’s created. He welcomes the black hatred into him, and falls beneath it.

 

Somewhere, far, far off, he hears Stiles shouting.

 

“Derek! Derek!,” Stiles sounds desperate. Derek feels his heavy body move; like someone is aggressively shaking him, and Derek groans. “DEREK!” Stiles shouts again, and there is a tingle against Derek’s teeth, “Damnit Derek! Wake up! The screen is stuck on Laura! Why is it stuck there?! Derek!” The taste of fear is sweet on Derek’s too heavy tongue, and slowly it rolls—trying to chase the flavor. “You have to wake up! Please! Derek! DEREK!” There is a small jolt of pain through Derek’s cheek and he hears the slap of flesh against flesh, loud in his ear. “I have a baby you’re supposed to take me home to!” The back of Derek’s head explodes with pain and his eyes flare open, vivid blue, as a howl tears out of his throat.

 

“Fuck,” Stiles says beside him—his skin flushed and damp with sweat. “You started to worry me the more deeply you fell into your memories.”

 

“You weren’t much better when I first got here,” Derek snaps back, lisping through his fangs, when he realizes they are in the quiet imagined auditorium of Stiles’s subconscious.

 

“You’re welcome,” Stiles snips, and then quieter whispers, “Thanks for…I dunno, whatever it was you did to pull me out.”

 

Derek pops his neck, his shift receding as he lets out a weary sigh. “You too,” Derek finally responds; awkward as plays with the new tear in his jeans from his claws.

 

“So how do we go back?” Stiles asks when the silence drags between them. Derek’s eyes lingering on the still image of where his sister’s mangled torso lies rotting on the forest floor.

 

He swallows, turning away from the gruesome image, and says, “This is your mind, you tell me.”

 

“The front door?” Derek shrugs and moves to follow when Stiles stands from the uncomfortable VCT floor.

 

——

 

Derek comes awake slowly—his body heavy like lead and his mouth dry as a desert. Beside him Stiles stirs, equally heavy and disoriented, but he has a bright smile when he takes note of the room around them.

 

Before Stiles can speak, before anyone else can, Derek notices Peter in the corner of the room and his rage is back. He launches himself out of the bed, from beside Stiles, and is across the room in an instant, “You have some nerve being here,” his voice isn’t human, and Scott’s already pulling him away which causes Derek to snarl again.

 

“Get lost, Peter,” Scott commands in his Alpha voice which makes Peter roll his electric eyes as he moves to leave—muttering beneath his breath about children and their theatrics. Once he’s gone the tense set to Derek’s shoulders relaxes, and he slumps against the wall. Very tired now that the source of his anger is gone. “Sorry, we weren’t sure if you were supposed to be gone that long,” Scott sounds sheepish—the exact opposite of the commanding Alpha he was moments before.

 

“How long were we out?” Derek questions as he finally takes note of the weakness in his limbs. He feels like a newborn lamb—unsteady.

 

“A week, dude,” Scott says in a voice that is raw—as if he’s still scared they aren’t going to make it back from the sleep alive.

 

Derek slumps further down the wall, suddenly too tired to stand, and Scott helps him settle into the floor.

 

His back against the cool sheetrock, Derek manages a small, tense smile when he sees Melissa come in with the pup Stiles has yet to meet.

 

There is a bright light in Stiles’s warm brown eyes when they settle upon the wriggling body of the infant. He’s wrapped in proper clothing—a soft gray long-sleeve onesie and dark brown corduroy pants with small gray baby socks on his feet. Stiles coos at him, taking the wriggling form from Melissa’s expert hold, and brings him close to Stiles’s chest. Stiles’s upturned nose pressing against the soft black hair on the pup’s temple, inhaling. Scott makes a weak joke about Stiles spending too much time with wolves, but Derek’s heart seizes at the sight of them, and Stiles looks up—like he can feel Derek’s love, his pain, his _everything_ , and the tightness increases.

 

“I love you, sweet boy,” Stiles whispers against the pup’s skin. Derek closes his eyes then, exhausted and heavy with emotion. He’s asleep before John comes barreling into the room with wet eyes and a smile as bright as the moon.

 

——

 

For a few days they live in a comfortable silence. It’s a tentative peace that neither of them wants to shatter. Derek still feels tired—too tired—and sore—too sore—for a werewolf, but he doesn’t want to think about what might have happened in the unsure place of Stiles’s mind. He can’t; emotionally he’s beyond his point of breaking—has been for some time if he’s being honest. So, for now, Derek just wants to pretend this is happiness, and that it will never, ever be broken.

 

Stiles finally speaks, one afternoon while their still nameless pup sleeps in the dip between Stiles’s thighs.

 

“I didn’t think I’d get to see him,” he admits, bright eyes still full of awe as he stares at the small body. “I was so scared they’d take him.”

 

This gets Derek’s full attention, and he sits forward in the chair John brought up from the living room, “Who?”

 

“They call themselves the Calaveras.” He narrows his eyes at a faceless enemy he tries to create, just beyond Stiles’s shoulder, and attempts to place why the name sounds familiar.

 

“Mexican hunters,” he says and Stiles nods, minutely. Derek sucks in an angry breath, “Cora,” he whispers, and Stiles’s eyes go wide and horrified. “What did they say to you, Stiles?”

 

“That they were looking for the she-wolf. I don’t know, I was drugged about ninety-eight percent of the time, and tortured…a lot of stuff I don’t really remember—nor do I want to remember, honestly. Just pain and more pain.” Derek growls, and Stiles gives him a weak smile. “They were nice at first. Claiming since I was human that they would be gentle, but the longer I was there the more obvious my condition and they seemed surprised as well as intrigued.”

 

“Were you not surprised?” Derek asks, tone incredulous. As far as Derek knew, before Stiles’s grotesque blood covered stomach came into his life, male pregnancy only ever happened to gods—in legends—and had never happened to a living shifter’s bed partner.

 

“Oh, I was totally fucking surprised, dude.” Stiles’s laugh is full of hysteria, “I mean, I seriously keep waiting to wake up in Eichen House, talking to the walls, and a stuffed sock that they tell me is my imaginary baby.”

 

Derek smiles despite the horribly sad truth in those words, “You aren’t crazy.”

 

“I keep thinking I am. I mean, shit. I went from murdering half the town to pregnant with your puppy. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.”

 

“You didn’t murder half the town, Stiles, some homicidal nogitsune did that while using your body.”

 

“Doesn’t mean I don’t remember it; doesn’t mean I didn’t watch it do all those things through me,” Stiles admits, after long minutes, with a broken whisper. His long arms hold the pup closer, and Derek can tell he’s afraid to let go. Derek knows that feeling. Any happiness he can find Derek clings to, because the minute he slackens his grip it’s gone and taunts him with the truth—the truth being he deserves no form of joy.

 

Derek doesn’t try to assure Stiles after that confession; he knows too well words won’t make things better. He can’t make Stiles stop feeling guilty, and he can’t make him see reason so he stops trying. In time, Derek knows from personal experience, Stiles will come to terms with what happened. It will suck and will be emotionally taxing, but they can deal with the fall-out of that when it comes. For now, Derek is too worn-out to deal with that particular set of emotions. Right now he wants details on the Calaveras. “So how did you make it back home?”

 

“Magic? Sheer will? Dude, I couldn’t tell you if I tried. All I know is one day I was being cut into, and the next day I was lying in a muddy ravine in the preserve screaming for you to help me. For all I know they dumped me there. Which is highly probable since I passed out a lot from the being cut into scenario.”

 

Derek gives a thoughtful hum and the conversation dies from there. Derek wonders about Cora, and hopes her pack is keeping her safe. Derek isn’t sure they would’ve shared that sort of information with him, but he wants to believe they didn’t know of these hunters. It helps ease his weary mind; that and the steady timbre of Stiles’s voice as he talks to their son.

 

Derek naps, allowing Stiles’s softly spoken version of the three little pigs to lull him into sleep. He dreams of fire—tastes it on his tongue and smells it in his nose before the nightmare shifts to the crimson and black gash over Stiles’s distended belly. A scream is loud in his skull and he jolts in his seat—finally awake—to find Stiles’s bedroom is silent and safe. In the bed Stiles sleeps, his hand covering their son’s stomach, and from outside the window bright moonlight settles a silvery shimmer over them in sleep. Derek flops against the chair and breathes out a sigh of relief. He notices, with a frown, that his claws have torn through the leather arms of John’s favorite recliner. Derek traces the deep gashes and debates falling back to sleep, but pushes the thought to the furthest corner of his mind when he stands to go to the kitchen for some much needed nourishment.

 

John’s heartbeat isn’t in the house, but his scent is fresh and Derek thinks he recalls him saying something about the late shift. He shrugs it away as he opens the fridge, retrieving a beer and the cold remnants of a day old steak. “You’re lucky Stiles is bedridden,” Derek mutters with a smirk at the red meat.

 

“Who is bedridden,” the shock of Stiles’s voice startles him and Derek drops the beer—shattering the dark brown bottle against the tiled floor. “Fucking hell, Derek!” Stiles scolds as he hurries over with some paper towels.

 

“Damnit, Stiles,” Derek hisses when he cuts his finger on a shard of glass—an injury caused by trying to push Stiles’s hands away from the mess. “I’ve got this. You’re broken! Get upstairs and back into bed.”

 

“Broken,” Stiles says with a flat tone and expression, “Who the hell is broken? I’m alive and can walk and am perfectly fucking fine. Now let me help.”

 

“You have a giant gash in your stomach. You. Are. Not. Helping.” Derek bites out, punctuating each word with a poke of his finger to Stiles’s shoulder. His touch far more gentle than it was in the past.

 

“What gash?” Stiles sounds genuinely curious, “Didn’t you see? Deaton worked some of his hoodoo magic on me and I am like in tip-top shape.” Derek frowns. Deaton did _not_ work magic on Stiles. He said from the beginning that was impossible—entirely too volatile and unpredictable. Just as he opens his voice to say so to Stiles, Stiles lifts his baggy, incredibly worn Star Wars shirt and reveals a stomach devoid of a gash or scarring. Derek scrambles closer, eyes wide, and runs the calloused pads of his fingertips over the smooth expanse of Stiles’s skin. His eyes track every inch, and he can’t find so much as a stretch mark. It baffles him because he saw that horrid jagged gash that was carved through the middle of Stiles’s stomach and he cannot imagine how any sort of magic could stitch Stiles back to how he was before pregnancy.

 

“Wha-,” he whispers, at a loss for words as he continues to touch the too warm skin. Intently searching for a hint of what used to live beneath Stiles’s skin—five or so passes and Derek still sees nothing.

 

“Erm, Derek,” Stiles swallows and Derek looks up to see him staring down at Derek’s searching fingers with wide freaked out eyes. Derek jumps back as if he’s been burned, and holds his hands up in surrender.

 

“Sorry. I…um…sorry.” He turns away from Stiles, his face burning with heat, and he busies himself with the glass on the floor again.

 

Once he’s got the floor clean he turns around to see if Stiles wants something to eat and is shocked when he finds Stiles is gone. With a frown Derek realizes he didn’t hear him approach nor did he hear him leave. There is a slight twinge in his finger and he looks down to see that it is still freely bleeding—is still a wound—and his eyebrows shoot up his hairline.

 

Suddenly, Derek is aware that there is something incredibly wrong.

 

——

 

They still haven't named him; Stiles frowns every time his dad calls the pitiful form baby and Derek calls him pup. Derek notices all this but still hasn’t offered up any suggestions and one day, while Derek is sitting in the living room, lost in his own private freak out, Stiles comes in with a dark expression.

 

“This kid is going to have an actual name. I am tired of calling him baby or pup.” Derek glances over at him, silent, as Stiles starts a long tirade of how they are horrible co-parents for not making this an issue sooner. Which eventually leads into a long sermon on Derek’s emotional constipation, and Derek’s frown gets tighter by the minute as Stiles paces the floor.

 

“Are you done,” he snaps when Stiles finally stops, and he’s only slightly proud of the embarrassed flush on Stiles’s skin.

 

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbles, and fidgets with his hands until he finally adds, “I just really want to do right by him. I haven’t had much in the way of right in my life, and I think he needs normal.”

 

“Got the wrong parents for that,” Derek snips and Stiles shoots him a withering look.

 

“Anyways, are there any names you’d want him to have?” Stiles starts.

 

“No,” Derek bites out. He’s not going to let himself get attached—that road leads to more heartache and he’s too weak to handle another loss. It will literally kill Derek if he has to suffer another; especially if it’s his own child or Stiles. That leads him to wonder why he’s still hanging around and a treacherous voice, that sounds suspiciously like Laura’s, tells him he’s in too deep to back out now. Still, he’s going to try to bow out of their lives. He has to. Derek can’t lose more family, and the longer he’s around the more likely Stiles and this pup are to die.

 

“Fine,” Stiles sneers, “I’ll come up with something.” Then he leaves Derek alone in the living room. Derek opens his palm, and looks at the cuts he made therein with his claws—hours ago—the wounds are still bleeding, not trying to stitch themselves closed and he sighs.

 

He needs to visit Deaton.

 

——

 

When he finally gets up the nerve Deaton isn’t in the clinic, but Peter is suspiciously lurking. Derek decides to talk to him despite his misgivings. Peter looks thoroughly excited when Derek tells him about his muted senses, and Derek growls. “Just because I’m not up to full power doesn’t mean I’m above asking Scott to kill you if you so much as breathe wrong near my pup.”

 

“Territorial, my, my, Derek,” Peter purrs, “Does this mean you’re entertaining the idea of playing house with our Stiles?” After another growl Peter rolls his eyes and drawls, “I might have an idea of what’s wrong with you.” When Derek opens his mouth, to demand answers, Peter holds up a staying hand and says, “Ah, ah, this information doesn’t come free, dear nephew.” Derek grits his teeth, wondering when he’ll stop caving to Peter’s obvious ploys. Still, Derek plays right into Peter’s hand and he knows it when a slow, predatory smile spreads across Peter’s face.

 

——

Stiles takes up the task of naming the squirming baby; one rainy afternoon while John is at the station and Derek has disappeared into the kitchen to make them lunch. He has to strain to hear them, despite the fact they are only a wall and a few feet away. That fact has Derek feeling on edge. “Claude,” Stiles murmurs, then huffs out a ‘no’ as the pup gurgles happily. He seems to love when Stiles talks, and luckily for the baby Stiles _loves_ to talk. Derek comes into the living room with a bowl of macaroni for Stiles; his eyes fall on Stiles’s smile and his lips as they press against the pup’s soft fist.

 

“Laurel,” Stiles whispers against the skin, and the pup gurgles again as he thrashes his little hand—hitting Stiles in the jaw, but not hard enough to damage—not yet at least. “Nah, you’re right—too stiff, too.” Blowing out a breath Stiles accepts the macaroni from Derek with a soft thanks and sucks it down as fast as he can so he can get back to the baby. Derek rolls his eyes at the display, but Stiles frowns and says, “I thought I’d never hold him—now that I can it’s hard to put him down for anything.”

 

Derek understands, but still says, “Won’t do him any good if you die from starvation because you couldn’t put him in his bouncy seat for a couple of minutes.” Stiles’s response is about as mature as a seventeen-year-old kid can be; he sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry in Derek’s direction.

 

“Now then,” he says with a bright smile directed down at the wide-eyed expression their son wears. “How about Rory?”

 

Derek chuckles and shakes his head when the baby farts, loudly, in response. Stiles doesn’t miss a beat, “Yeah, too _Gilmore Girls_ for us, huh?”

 

“Hunter?” Stiles asks at the baby and Derek turns to him with a glare.

 

“I’ll rip your throat out if you saddle that kid with that name.”

 

“With your teeth?” Stiles wiggles his eyebrow at Derek, and then with a more somber expression says, “They were the first evil he faced; I thought it was fitting and slightly ironic.”

 

“No, Stiles.”

 

——

 

A day later the pack comes by and Stiles officially introduces their son to them as, “Hunter Scott Hale.”

 

“No Stilinski?” Allison asks with a frown, and Stiles beams.

 

“There’s plenty of Stilinski in this kid, but I figure I’ve got to give at least one name to Derek.” He misses the knowing looks the pack sweep between him and Stiles; Derek’s too busy worrying about why he feels so _different_ to notice anything happening around him.

 

——

 

He grows weaker by the day; it gets to the point where he has to sleep at least twelve hours to have any energy. Derek goes back to the loft, and Stiles offers to go with him but he waves the idea away with a gentle expression. “I think it’s safer for you both here; nearer Scott and the pack’s protection.”

 

“But you’re our fa-,” Stiles stops himself, and Derek wants to pretend he doesn’t know what Stiles wants to say. “Alright, we’ll come by every few days.” Stiles mutters—relenting—and Derek doesn’t try to fight him.

 

——

 

The favor Peter wants is help finding The Desert Wolf; the possible coyote woman he put Malia in years before. Probably on some drunken bender, or while he was plotting the downfall of their pack—Derek doesn’t really care and agrees to find her. Derek calls Braeden, since she’s the only one who might have a snowball’s chance in hell at finding the mysterious woman. Derek’s not fond of her, and she costs a small fortune—but if it gets Peter to tell him what’s going on with his body then Derek will do anything. She agrees to the job after a stiff negotiation, and when Peter lets himself out of the loft she grabs Derek by the wrist, spinning him, narrowing her eyes when he can’t get out of her grip.

 

“What did you get yourself into, Hale?”

 

——

 

Stiles moves himself in, without Derek’s permission, after a few weeks. Soon he has Stiles and Hunter in his loft—filling his den with their scents and their constant sounds. Derek wishes he could find comfort in it, but instead he is full of the fear of what will happen if someone invades this space. It keeps his exhausted body awake at night while Stiles and Hunter sleep soundly in Derek’s bed; beside Derek as he worries about every little evil that could take them from him.

 

He’s so worried he asks Braeden for a gun the next time they meet. Derek’s never liked guns, and he likes them even less when she places one into his hands. It is heavy, cold, and stinks of chemicals Derek dislikes, but he grips the handle when he thinks of Hunter’s gurgles. “It’s time to teach you how to fight,” Braeden murmurs and Derek’s mouth twists into a frown when she smiles wickedly.

 

Stiles’s face is in his mind’s eye, making Derek swallow his pride as he says, “Alright, where do we start?”

 

——

 

Stiles looks angry, or hurt, or _something_. Derek can’t tell without his senses. Times like these he realizes just how reliant he has been on scents—because scents _never_ lie. They cannot be faked, but expressions are hard to decipher. It makes him frustrated when Stiles watches him with those eyes, and Derek can’t figure out what Stiles wants. What he needs. Most nights Stiles stays in bed with Hunter, murmuring myths against his hair while Derek watches them out of the corner of his eye.

 

——

 

“I love Hunter,” Stiles says, one night, on the phone, when he thinks Derek is asleep on the couch. “But sometimes, Scotty, I wished I’d have waited until after school to have him. This online shit su—cks.” Derek can’t hear what Scott says but it makes Stiles chuckle, “Well at least you’re getting laid, again. I’m pretty sure sex with Derek is a distant pipe dream at this point.” Stiles sighs, and Derek hates himself for making him so miserable, “I dunno, man, honestly—he’s keeping shit from me. I can tell when he comes in most nights…his face all constipated with the angst of his silent war.” A silence falls and Derek wonders if perhaps they’ve hung up, but then Stiles is speaking—his voice soft and vulnerable in a way Derek’s never heard from him, “I think he’s sleeping with Braeden, Scott, and I can’t compete with _that._ Derek’s got needs and I think the one time was a fluke caused by grief and loneliness.” A little sob fills the loft and Derek’s heart is in pieces when he hears it, “I was a fool to think someone like him could love someone like me.” A soft laugh comes when Stiles adds, “But I know he loves Hunter. You should see the way Derek looks at him when he thinks I’m not watching. His gaze is far off, and ringed with pain, but it’s the kind of pain only a parent knows—you know? Where he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to provide enough, protect enough— _enough_ , enough. I wish his pack could see how far he’s come.”

 

——

 

Braeden sees through Derek; she just _knows_ , and it terrifies Derek that now two people who could easily kill him know the truth of his secret. The one he’s kept hidden from Stiles—the one that has Stiles suspicious and upset. It scares him to be so vulnerable. He wonders, then, if this is what it’s like to be truly human. To fear wounds, to scar, and to die so easily. When he voices that aloud she punches him extra hard in the stomach and says, “Shut up, Princess.” Before proceeding to beat the hell out of him.

 

——

The Calaveras resurface when Derek’s as human as he can get, and it’s Stiles’s scream, through his phone, that alerts him to what’s the matter.

 

“Hunter and Scott are gone! I took a shower and when I came out they were gone! Scott’s phone’s still here, Derek! He wouldn’t just take Hunter!” Derek is in the hold of an underling of the old huntress’ when the words reach him, and he looks at her, fear and anger mingling on his face while he snarls.

 

“Lobito,” she simpers, “It wasn’t us who took your puppy. The mate, yes, we had him for a time. Even tried to take the puppy from him to lure the she-wolf, but she’s far too clever. She waited until you were both content—safe in your den—to strike, because she is an evil creature.”

 

“Why,” he demands—voice thick with fear, “Why would she take my son?” Derek thrashes in the hold of his captor, but the man holding him hardly budges and Derek hates how helpless he is.

 

“Sacrifice, lobito, and what god would turn down the offering of such an innocent?” There is not a maternal hint of warmth within this woman. When she tells him of his son’s impending doom—even when she spoke of torturing Stiles—she remains indifferent, cold, and her voice never sounds anything more than casual. Bored even. Derek wonders about this nameless she-wolf then because the woman before him is cold, ruthless, and she’s implying that the she-wolf is worse. His heart plummets at the thought. _Hunter is going to die._

 

The Calaveras toss him out of their van, in the alley behind his building of lofts. Derek grimaces at the road rash he sees on his side. He pulls his dirty shirt down over it, and makes his way inside as fast as he can manage when half beaten.

 

Stiles is pacing, chewing on his thumb, when Derek pulls the door open. Allison and Kira are talking in low tones, while Isaac sits on the sofa with Lydia, Malia, and Liam. Not for the first time Derek misses Erica and Boyd—they would’ve been nice to have in this upcoming fight. Suddenly, he is reminded of all the suffering his return, and Laura’s, brought back to Beacon Hills. In near two years these kids have dealt with more than most packs deal with in a lifetime; all that knowledge does is flood him with guilt. Isaac’s golden gaze snaps to him, and Derek knows Isaac’s scented his turmoil on the air. The only one who doesn’t notice is Stiles. He’s too caught up in his own worry and despair to take note of anything around him. Derek watches him—the way Stiles is curved in on himself, as if trying to find comfort within the circle of his own arms. He’s strongly reminded of the memories he saw within Stiles’s mind—the ones that showed a boy that spent most of his youth trying to keep it all together. He’s younger and the opposite of Derek—Derek who spent a good part of his youth trying to tear everything down with his anger.

 

Before he can slip down another spiral of depression Stiles turns and it breaks something in Derek when he sees the _hope_ on Stiles’s face as his gaze lands on Derek. Despite all the horrible things Derek has brought to Stiles’s door he is still there and still believes that Derek can save them. It’s the saddest joke Derek’s ever known.

 

Allison is the one who breaks the silence, stepping towards Derek with an angry look on her face, “My dad contacted the Calaveras and we have the name of the she-wolf, as well as a general location.” There is something in Allison’s stance; Derek doesn’t need his senses to know what she’s going to tell him. He knows the truth in his soul before she lets the rest of this wayward pack in on the secret the Calaveras were keeping.

 

It’s Kate, because it’s _always_ Kate or Peter when shit hits the fan for Derek. His family, his sorta pack—after Laura got killed by Peter—and now his son. They’re always there at his weakest to try to use whatever they can of him for their own gain. The Temple of Tezcatlipoca is the last place Derek wants to go, but he’d follow Kate to hell if he had to in order to get Hunter and Scott back.

 

——

 

Stiles refuses to be left behind once they start working out a vague plan, and he finally relents despite Derek’s hours of arguing that Stiles needs to stay behind.

 

“He’s my son, Derek, I’m going to get him…and I can’t abandon Scott.” Stiles looks ready to fight him—his grip is tight on the handle of an aluminum bat so Derek relents.

 

Derek doesn’t voice his true concern: Stiles needs to stay home so that Hunter will have at least one parent to return to. He can’t deny Stiles—even when he knows he should.

 

——

 

The journey is long. Liam is fidgeting around, in the back of a prison transport van, with Stiles and Derek watching him warily while he tries to stave off the effects of the moon. Isaac’s too busy keeping an eye on Peter to lend a hand because no one believes he is innocent in this current predicament. Who else would betray them to Kate? Moreover, who else knows of Derek’s weakness? Kate would never have entered Derek’s den if she believed he was still at full power. And then there is the issue of why she would take Scott—Kate has no need for an Alpha’s power, but Peter—Peter has always wanted power.

 

“Find an anchor,” Derek tells Liam, pushing his dark thoughts aside to focus on this pitiful pup. It might be the only pup he ever helps through a full moon, and he wants Stiles to know how when the time comes for Hunter. Since Derek doesn’t expect to walk away from this fight.

 

“What’s your anchor,” Liam asks and Stiles snorts, telling him Derek’s anchor is anger. Derek doesn’t correct him. It used to be, but now—when those brown eyes glare at him—Derek knows his anchor has changed.

 

——

 

Berserkers meet them, and Derek isn’t lucky enough to avoid the sharp bone of a weapon through his middle as soon as the doors to the van open. Isaac is already in the cave, chasing after a cackling Kate.

 

“Derek,” Stiles screams, rushing to his side while Braeden fights the others off alongside Liam, Allison, and Kira who keeps staring at the cave’s entrance with worried glowing orange eyes. “Derek!” His long fingers trace Derek’s face, before traveling down to the profusely bleeding wound, “Why—why aren’t you healing!?”

 

“Go Stiles,” he urges, but Stiles won’t move, “Go, go now! Scott…Scott and Hunter need you!”

 

“I…can’t leave you,” Stiles sobs. His fingers winding in Derek’s shirt, “Who’s going to teach Hunter to control the shift!?”

 

Derek smiles despite everything, “Go, Stiles.” He says it like a normal man would say _I love you._

 

“No, you sorry fucker! I won’t!” Stiles is angry with him, teeth glinting white in the night as he bares them at Derek—wolflike, “I know why you push me away, Derek! You’ve got this fucked up belief you don’t deserve this—me and Hunter and us as a family! So what!? Do I have to suffer, asshole? Hmm, for your stupid self-destruction? How is that fair? To Hunter? To me? To _you?”_ Stiles kisses his mouth then, not in the least worried about the black ooze leaking at the corner, “I saw what you are, Derek. All the darkness, the anger, the self-loathing and I’m _still_ here. You saw _me_.” He sniffs, “You saw all of me; I’m not perfect either. There is darkness in me, too. So quit running from me, or else I’ll get to the point where I’ll be done chasing you.”

 

Derek laughs, mirthful for the first time in years as he strokes a tear from Stiles’s face, “No you won’t—you’re too stupid to leave me alone.”

 

“Fucking right,” Stiles snorts and swallows hard when Derek tells him to ‘go’ again.

 

“Now, Stiles, I’ll be right behind you.” Stiles can tell it’s a lie. They both know Derek’s not moving, but he doesn’t want Stiles to see. Stiles seems to realize that Derek can’t stand for him to witness this moment; so he leaves, after a fleeting kiss to Derek’s temple. Derek’s glad he’s not watching. He doesn’t care if anyone else sees him die, but he’d hate himself for eternity if Stiles saw the way he gasps, a bubble of blood popping out of his mouth. He cries, a full sob, and feels himself growing cold. Derek’s powerless to stop it; he’s damn terrified. For the first time in years Derek Hale doesn’t want to die.

 

 

**“Go, now, son, your son and mate need you.”**

 

 

Derek opens his eyes in the body of a wolf. The earth is a thrum of energy beneath his paws, his eyes able to track the smallest speck of dust, and his long ears catching the faintest sounds—he howls, a long mournful sound in the chaos of a small battle. The Calaveras are fighting, along with some of Derek’s pack, against the Berserkers. His wolf-eyes catch the sight of Stiles scrambling away, a bundle in his arms—arms that are scraped and dirtied.

 

A snarl leaves Derek’s throat when he sees Kate following Stiles with malicious intent marring her face. His paws hit the ground with a thud, and he can feel his claws cutting through the earth as he runs faster to where Stiles is screaming.

 

Derek doesn’t notice when the fighting slows at the sound of his angry howl. He’s too focused on Kate. Kate who is standing over Stiles and his child with bright claws and sharp teeth. She turns, her vivid green eyes widening in surprise, when Derek leaps on her. His fangs sharp in her neck—biting her everywhere he can, his intent to kill her until Stiles shouts for him to stop.

 

He does—instantly—and watches Kate scramble away from him while Derek’s form shifts slowly from wolf to human.

 

“This can’t be,” she hisses, “You’re—Peter said you’d die! He said you were too weak to stop us now.”

 

He growls and she hurries further back—ugly in her soul despite what her appearance shows, and Derek wonders how he could’ve ever loved her. “I was evolving, Kate—something you will never do.”

 

A Berserker runs at Derek; he hears Stiles shout, “Derek!” Taking hold of the skull covering the beast, Derek glares it down with crimson eyes as he digs his fingers into the hard bone. At last it gives, he watches as it breaks apart in his hands and dusts is all that is left of the Berserker. Kate’s scent is heavy with fear when Derek turns to her, satisfied as he stands over her a changed man. For years she’s haunted him—his monster in the dark—and in this moment he’s won. He’s conquered this demon by preventing her from stealing what little family he has left—what little happiness.

 

“Going to kill me now, Derek?” Kate sneers, and he catches the tremble in her voice.

 

“No,” he smiles, eyes flashing crimson as they glare down upon her. “I’ll leave that to the hunters. It’s their job to put down the rabid.” Chris comes around with the Calaveras and Allison. Derek snarls when the old woman glances at Stiles and Hunter. Her response is to smirk at him, but she looks away when she notices the red of Derek’s eyes tracking her like prey. He is prepared to end her, in a second, if she so much as breathes wrong near Stiles again.

 

Derek pays no attention as the hunters approach Kate. She’s out of his mind now—in this moment all he cares about is Stiles and Hunter.

 

“She’s finally behind me,” Derek whispers into Stiles’s hair as he pulls him closer to inhale, “I carried her with me, in secret, for years—a festering darkness I couldn’t let go of…until now.” It’s the most honest he’s ever been with Stiles, and Stiles’s scent is sweet with relief as he throws an arm around Derek’s neck and pulls him closer. Hunter is squirming between them, and Derek smiles as he looks down upon his wriggling form. He’s been untouched—undamaged—and for that Derek is eternally grateful.

 

Stiles gifts him a weak smile as Hunter’s small fist closes around Derek’s finger.

 

——

 

No words are spoken as they climb into the back of Derek’s SUV some hours after two shots rang through the night—ending a chapter of Derek’s life with a morbid kind of finality. Isaac, mercifully, takes the driver seat. Stiles settles into the backseat with his long arms cradling Hunter to his chest. Derek’s wearing Stiles’s boxers, since no one had any other clothing to spare, as he climbs in next to Stiles and his son. There are deep bruises on his lower back, pecs, and arms, but he welcomes the pain. It reminds him he’s alive. From the back window Derek watches as Malia climbs into the other car with Allison, Lydia, Liam, and Kira.

 

“She’s confused,” Stiles says when he notices Derek’s line of sight, and Derek grunts in response. “She’s trying to figure out where she belongs, Derek. Can you blame her?”

 

“We told her about Peter,” his tone is too tired to be argumentative, but it is still full of bitterness. Malia hesitated in defending the pack against Peter, and according to Lydia her hesitation continued until Peter—in his usual fashion—betrayed her feelings by turning his viciousness upon her as well as the others.

 

“He’s her father. She wants to believe he’s incapable of bad. Hunter will grow up thinking the same about you.” Stiles’s defense of Malia causes his hackles to rise.

 

“I’m not evil.” Is his immediate response.

 

Stiles hesitates, and Derek isn’t surprised when he whispers, “But you weren’t always good.”

 

“No,” Derek readily agrees; the fight going out of him when he looks into Stiles’s bright eyes. “I wasn’t.”

 

All conversation stops after that, and Scott climbs in the front passenger seat—heavily battered but healing—before Isaac puts the gear in drive. Scott reaches back, often as the miles pass, running his tan fingers over Stiles’s hair, Hunter’s face, soft black curls, and arms. Occasionally, he even touches Derek on his exposed knee or his forearm. When he turns back from them he always rubs a hand down the side of Isaac’s arm. No one mentions this, or discourages it; even Stiles, breakable human Stiles, knows that this is important for the wolves. They crave the scent of pack, need the feel, and reassurance that they are whole, alive and well. Derek wants to touch Stiles, his fingers itch to pull him close, bury his face in the juncture between his neck and shoulder, but he doesn’t know if it will be welcome. So Derek rides in silence, allowing the lull of the car and the comforting scent of pack to lure him into the arms of sleep.

 

——

 

Derek is startled when Stiles’s hand touches him, and he wakes to the dark light of early morning. “Shit,” he says, “Did I sleep the whole way?”

 

It’s rhetorical so he doesn’t get a reply, which is okay with Derek who is busy stretching. Isaac pulls them to a stop next to the curb, and Derek gazes up at the tall building of lofts until Scott’s voice breaks through the silence.

 

“Mind if we drive the car home?” He looks and sounds as tired as Derek feels, and he nods his consent.

 

“I think I’m going to sleep for a week—so I doubt I’ll miss it.” Derek opens the door and as he begins climbing from the car he turns to find Stiles staring down at Hunter, chewing his bottom lip. “Coming?” Derek’s face crumples when Stiles shakes his head ‘no’ and his heart breaks further when Stiles finally lifts his eyes to look at Derek.

 

“I know I pushed my way in last time, and I don’t want to this time around.”

 

Two days ago Derek would’ve let Stiles shut him out—hell he would’ve welcomed it—but right now he’s tired of passively letting everything else set the pace of his life. A growl tears out of his throat and instinctively Scott pins him with red eyes as he releases a warning growl. A warning Derek ignores when he lunges into the back of the car and wraps a hand around the back of Stiles’s neck—pulling his face closer to Derek’s own. “I thought you said you were too stupid to stop chasing me, Stiles.” A soft whimper leaves Stiles and Derek mouthes more words against Stiles’s damp lips, “I died tonight, and I came back for you—please, _please_ , come with me.”

 

“Are you-,” Derek cuts the question off with a rough kiss.

 

“I need your scents—please, Stiles.” Stiles’s gaze softens and he touches Scott’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze, letting Scott know it’s alright before they climb from the car.

 

Derek heads into the lobby—uncaring of his near nude state. A few of the residents who are awake at the late hour snicker when he passes, but Derek is too tired to give a shit as he maneuvers Stiles and Hunter into one of the lifts. The ride up feels like it takes forever, but at last they are to Derek’s private floor.

 

Stiles sushes Hunter while Derek works the lock of the door open. They don’t talk as they enter the darkness of the loft, and Derek growls at the remainder of Kate’s scent. Stiles’s hand on his bare bicep keeps his wolf at bay, and he settles remembering that she will never darken their lives again. Stiles moves in near silence to Derek’s upstairs room, and Derek follows him like an obedient dog. What keeps him from being annoyed with his clingy behavior is the fact that he needs to see Stiles, needs to know he’s still there because losing him once was more than enough for one lifetime.

 

Hunter fusses, his little fists swinging through the air as Stiles settles him into the sheets of Derek’s large bed. “Shh, sweet boy,” Stiles whispers, his long fingers tracing the curve of a soft infant forehead, “I’m going to go to the bathroom real fast.”

 

Derek feels unsettled when the door to his en suite closes, but he manages to calm his emotions when he notices Hunter’s eyes glowing golden from anxiety. Quickly Derek goes to him, and climbs into the bed beside Hunter—flashing red eyes at him and rumbling low in the back of his throat.

 

Stiles stills when he exits the bathroom—and Derek can scent the unease from where Stiles stands unmoving.

 

“Tu es carne de mi carne, sangre de mi sangre, hueso de mis huesos, mi familia y mi vida,” Derek rumbles down at his son, and he is proud when his pup holds his gaze. He releases a low howl—a sound Hunter tries to recreate but it only comes out a high whine. Even so Derek smiles in a pleased way as he lifts his son into his arms. Something settles within Derek a feeling of completion and _right_.

 

“This is you finally acknowledging him, isn’t it,” Stiles says as he moves closer to the bed. Stopping just short of the mattress, and he doesn’t give Derek time to answer his question. “You’ve finally held your son,” Stiles states. “He’s six months old, Derek, why now?”

 

“I died tonight,” he repeats and he’s not defensive when he speaks—the tone is just as desperate and as vulnerable as it was when Derek begged Stiles to come to the loft with him.

 

“So you’ve said,” Stiles whispers as he plays with the hem of his dirty t-shirt. With a lost expression Stiles fidgets while he mulls over his words before he finally reveals them to Derek, “You also said you came back for me—why?”

 

He doesn’t want to say. It’s still hard for Derek to admit that he is vulnerable. Stiles was right when he said Stiles saw all of him and in turn Derek saw all of Stiles—but _knowing_ and _believing_ are two different things, and Derek has yet to believe what he knows to be true. Stiles loves him. Stiles will not hurt him. Derek loves Stiles. Derek will never intentionally hurt him (emotionally, because he has intentionally hurt Stiles physically). All of their past interactions prove that; Derek saw what they were in those memories. Still, he’s having a hard time accepting it because…

 

“You still think you don’t deserve this,” Stiles’s voice is loud in the room and Derek glances up from Hunter’s sleeping face to see Stiles looking at him with wide, earnest brown eyes. Eyes that see through ever mask Derek tries to create and he swallows. Stiles’s smile is sad, “Why am I here, Derek?” Derek frowns at the desperation in his question.

 

“Sodalis Vitae,” Derek whispers, at last, and Stiles slumps to his knees—relief is the bright scent that radiates off him, filling the loft with it’s refreshing burst.

 

“Who told you,” Stiles asks when he finally lifts his head from his hands, and Derek can see that he has a sheen of tears covering his eyes.

 

“My mother,” Derek answers as he adjusts the warm weight of Hunter into a more comfortable position. Stiles moves tentatively, as if Derek is an easily frightened creature, and settles beside Derek. His long fingers ghost the hand Derek has resting against Hunter’s back, and when he realizes Derek won’t pull away he covers Derek’s hand with his own. With a swallow Derek faces Stiles, looking him in the eye—studying the varying degrees of brown as if they were some rare creature—and eventually he whispers, “Want me to show you?”

 

Derek watches Stiles nod, and swallows when Stiles removes his blood-stained shirt. His claws come out with little effort—as simple as breathing—and Stiles’s eyes watch him with anticipation rather than fear. It shouldn’t excite Derek, but does. He doesn’t hesitate as he sinks his claws into the back of Stiles’s neck.

 

——

 

They open their eyes within the dark clearing in the middle of the preserve. Derek knows this clearing well; it’s a few yards behind where his house once sat, and is the place where Derek first popped his fang and claws. Stiles is beside him and his warm hand grabs hold of Derek’s. With a shy smile Stiles laces their fingers together.

 

“What’s happening,”Stiles asks when the silence around them grows longer, and Derek shushes him with fond eyes.

 

The shift of movement draws Stiles’s gaze to the line of trees before them, and Derek doesn’t have to look to know that it’s his mother. Still he watches her—wanting to see her again—Talia stands tall nude, after her shift, proud and unashamed. Even now, at twenty-seven, Derek finds himself in awe of her. His mother is an Alpha unlike any Derek knew before and unlike any he will ever meet. Her red eyes are on them—seemingly—but soon a bloodied, battered Derek falls to the ground before Talia and her gaze follows that Derek.

 

The Derek before them is broken as he looks up at Talia—his eyes are wet and a sob comes from his throat. It hurts Derek to watch what he was in that moment, and he hurts knowing Stiles sees. Stiles squeezes his hand, and when he looks over at Stiles he sees the pained way that he watches Derek’s memory.

 

On the ground they watch as Derek cries, “I don’t…I don’t want to be here— _please_.”He grips the earth, a wracking sob shudders through his body, and Talia watches impassively. Finally Derek looks up at Talia, his voice comes out mangled—pure devastation—when he says, “Is this where you take me to Hell, Mom?”

 

Talia’s face moves through a complicated range of emotions, but the most obvious emotion is pity and Derek squeezes Stiles’s hand when he sees it. The Derek kneeling before Talia is too full of worry to notice Talia’s subtle clues. “I can only guide you if you wish to go,” Talia says after a long pause.

 

Derek cackles, his mouth still caked with black ooze and blood, looking up at Talia and Stiles flinches when that Derek screams, “I never get anything I want! Why would anything change for me now?” He manages to contain another sob, but the Derek watching remembers it was hard to stop the sound. Made harder still when Talia kneels and wraps long arms around Derek, pulling his dirtied head to her shoulder.

 

“You are my son, my pup, my _pack_ , Derek.” Her words are as fierce as her red eyes. “You will not die this easily,” she promises him and lifts his head, shaking him until he looks at her. “You will not die here, not tonight.”

 

“Don’t I deserve to?” Beside Derek he hears Stiles inhale and the hand in his grips Derek’s with bruising strength. In Talia’s arms Derek is boneless, and he can see the fight has gone out of his old self. “The world would be better without me.”

 

“Your son needs you, Derek,” Talia snarls.

 

“He has Stiles,” Derek whispers, “That’s more than enough.”

 

“What about your mate?” She demands and that gets battered Derek’s attention—he sits up within the circle of her arms.

 

“Mates aren’t real. Laura said so,” Derek tries to pull lose from her hold but Talia doesn’t let him go.

 

“Mates aren’t common, but every wolf is born with one. They are fragile bonds; broken easily, unless nurtured,” Talia whispers.

 

“Nurtured,” his voice is numb.

 

“You saw the memories, Derek—you and Stiles are written in pages of personal tragedy, self-hatred, and hopelessness.” She’s wearing a sad expression when she runs a hand across his cheek, “Tragedy is what links people, but it is love that binds them. How many lows did you anchor one another through—without ever knowing?”

 

On the ground he still looks unconvinced, and Talia takes his face into her hands—making Derek look at her again. “You have to go back—you cannot leave this world, not until it is his time as well.”

 

His eyes are wet and he looks frightened, “What?”

 

“Sodalis Vitae,” she whispers, and Derek—on the ground—has a look of dawning upon his pale face.

 

“Stiles screamed that at me, in Deaton’s clinic.” His eyebrows furrow and suddenly he presses closer to her, face determined, “What does that mean?”

 

“Do you remember the legend Vitam Consortem?” He nods and Talia continues, “Sodalis Vitae is what the emissaries call a soul mate; a true soul mate, and the Vitam Consortem is the wolf’s legend of mates. You suffer before you find them, you suffer with them, and—,”

 

“You suffer after,” Derek finishes.

 

“Only,” Talia says with a sad smile, “There is no after with a true soul mate. You die, they die, because that is your reason for breathing. No matter what they do, no matter what you do, no matter if your children still need you—one of the mates dies and so does the other.”

 

Derek gets up onto his knees then, scrambling to his feet, yelling, “Stiles! Stiles!” Talia stands with him, catching him around the shoulders.

 

“You can go back, but you’ll have to call your wolf back to you.”

 

“What,” Derek looks so damned confused and scared as Talia smooths a hand down his arm.

 

“When you saved Stiles you gave him something, Derek—like when you gave up your Alpha spark to save Cora. Only with Stiles you didn’t have that spark left to give. So you gave the spark of your wolf, and slowly it left you. It left you to heal him—that is why he lived, and that is why he did not scar after he woke.” She pats his cheek, looking at him with such a proud expression and there is a sheen of tears that glitters over her dark eyes. “To leave this place you have to get the spark of your wolf back.”

 

“How?” He sounds desperate.

 

“Howl.”

 

He does and the first attempt is so pitiful it reminds the watching Derek and Stiles of that time Scott used the loudspeaker to try and lure out Peter.

 

Derek falls again to the ground, defeated, and above Talia growls at him—as she had when he didn’t try hard enough to control his shift. “Like you _mean_ it Derek!” Her eyes flash down at him, “It won’t come if you don’t howl like you did when you saw your pup wasn’t breathing. How like you did when you found Laura in these woods. Like you did when you thought Stiles was dying.” Each suggestion reveals no results. Despair is obvious in the way Derek’s shoulders haunch after each horrible howl he releases.

 

Talia considers him, and kneels, “When did you first transform, Derek?”

 

“April Eighth Nineteen-Ninety-Four,” is the immediate reply, because Derek will never forget that day.

 

Beside Derek Stiles presses closer to his side and whispers, “That’s the day I was born.”

 

Talia, on the ground by the other Derek, says as much, “That’s the day your mate is born. We all transform when a mate is born, but most of us are not lucky enough to meet the person strong enough to pull our wolf out of us.” She touches his chin—lifts it with gentle fingers—and whispers, “Remember that sudden rush of excitement Derek—reach inside of you and find that joy, that fear, that all encompassing burst of completion.”

 

On the ground Derek obviously struggles, but stills when he’s found that memory. Derek and Stiles watch as he goes rigid, throwing his head back, releasing a howl that rattles the trees.

 

The body of a giant midnight colored wolf bursts into the clearing, and the howling ceases.

 

“What is that?” Derek demands of Talia, and she smiles down at him.

 

“That is your wolf.” She beckons it closer, and it does so—stopping at her side.

 

“How do I get it back in me?” Derek sounds frantic.

 

“You get into it,” and when Derek continues to look confused Talia says, “You have to die to be reborn, Derek.” He grabs onto her hand, fearful and she smiles—all motherly warmth in the expression, “Let go of the old you to become the new you, Derek.” This is him—in the most feral of forms and he shudders in a breath when he looks upon his wolf. Not a monster like Peter’s or Deucalion’s, but beautiful and wild like his mother’s and Laura’s.

 

Then they watch as Derek lets go.

 

Talia’s hand is still on the fur of the wolf, and she flashes red eyes at it. The wolf flashes crimson eyes back, and she gives him two final commands.

 

Firstly:

 

“When you get to your den; hold your pup, and claim him as your own—use our words. He deserves to hear them.”

 

And finally:

**“Go, now, son, your son and mate need you.”**

 

——

 

Derek opens his eyes to Stiles’s wide gaze and without warning Stiles crashes his mouth against Derek’s. The kiss is passionate with fury, sorrow, and desperation. Even so Derek gives just as good as he gets. Hunter lies on the mattress beside them; undisturbed and content in his sleep. It is a stark contrast to how frantic they are. Derek’s hands frame Stiles’s face and he pulls Stiles closer.

 

Eventually, they have to pull apart and both of them take deep, greedy breaths. “Who told you?” Derek asks, and Stiles doesn’t need clarification.

 

His smile is soft, a smile Derek usually sees directed at Hunter—but now this smile is his alone, and he leans into Stiles’s palm when he cups Derek’s cheek. “My mother,” Stiles whispers, “Though she met me in my old bedroom.”

 

Long fingers trace over the lines of Derek’s angular face, and he shivers but holds Stiles’s gaze with his own as Stiles continues, “She told me I couldn’t die yet.” His laugh is brittle, “Said I had to go back to my soul mate, and that I wasn’t allowed to die until we were both old and fulfilled. That’s the abridged version.”

 

“Is it,” Derek’s own smile is small—he knows it will take time for them to feel safe and whole with one another.

 

“Yeah—one day, when I’m ready, I’ll show you.” Derek buries his nose in the crook between Stiles’s shoulder and neck—breathing deeply for long minutes. Until at last his wolf settles beneath his skin. Content that Stiles is here—home—in their den and beside them Hunter’s rhythmic breathing lulls Derek into a sense of calm he hasn’t felt since childhood. “Let’s sleep now, big guy,” Stiles says around a yawn. “I don’t know about you but in the morning I want to wake up and start this right.”

 

——

 

“It’s just one night, Stiles,” John assures as he tries to take Hunter from Stiles’s hands. Stiles keeps pulling their pup closer and glaring at his dad when he steps nearer to them.

 

“No,” Stiles shakes his head, “Absolutely not, Dad. No. He’s not spending the night anywhere, ever.” Derek shares a look with John, but doesn’t try to argue with Stiles. The arguments they have are still pretty explosive when they happen which happens frequently now that Derek isn’t mortal and terrified, and Stiles isn’t scared Derek’s going to run and shove Stiles out. They are still very much the picture of dysfunction, according to every relationship/parenting book Derek’s bothered to read, but he likes to think it works for them.

 

“I have wolfsbane bullets and Scott’s staying on the sofa just to assure me,” John tries again, but Stiles narrows his eyes and hisses. Like the child he still is at eighteen. John relents and wanders off, in the direction of his kitchen, while Stiles makes his way to the living room.

 

Without warning—as always—Stiles yanks his head over his shirt and Hunter latches on to Stiles’s nipple. Scott complains every time, and Stiles argues it’s natural which usually ends in Stiles starting a shouting match with Scott because Scott insists **men don’t breastfeed**. _It is NOT natural, Stiles._ Derek ignores them both when it happens because it doesn’t bother him either way. Whatever Stiles is comfortable doing makes Derek happy. If Laura was around she’d call him a sap.

 

Derek watches his son suck greedily at Stiles—over Stiles’s shoulder—his little face wet from when he falls asleep and loses his latch before he whines and clamps back on. Derek whines, low in his throat, and Hunter echoes the sound. His small eyes flashing open, briefly, to reveal golden beta eyes. Derek smiles, glad once again that his son doesn’t have to live his whole life knowing the cold of blue eyes.

 

“He likes it when you do that,” Stiles whispers, one of his long fingers tracing against Hunter’s baby fat cheek. Even now Stiles is in awe of Hunter—most days Derek catches him watching Hunter with delight as if everything Hunter does is magical. Not once has Stiles complained or wrinkled his nose in disgust—not even when Hunter had diarrhea and a slight fever last week.

 

Derek doesn’t reply, instead he settles his face into the juncture between Stiles’s neck and shoulder. Inhaling, before pressing the points of his wolf teeth against the soft flesh. He doesn’t bite down, but God he wants and has wanted for weeks now. However, they are still tentative—still new—and Derek doesn’t feel like ruining what they have because he’s horny. Horny. All. The. Damn. Time. As if he’s some kind of kid who just discovered what his dick is for, and it’s humiliating.

 

His humiliation grows when Stiles looks at him with a smile and Derek is hard in his too tight jeans. He’s hard from a _smile_.

 

Derek’s face burns when John comes back in, settling a knowing look over him when he takes in the flush on Derek’s cheeks. Instead of saying anything John sits in his new recliner (a gift from Derek for his birthday), and puts his feet up before he turns on the television.

 

They all sit in silence while they watch a lacrosse match between BHHS and Devenford Prep on a local cable channel. Coach is on the sidelines cursing up a storm, a large vein throbbing in his forehead, and Derek snorts when he sees Liam knock some poor kid out.

 

“I thought you and Scott sorted out that kid’s issues,” John comments offhandedly when they gurney the poor victim of Liam’s strength off the field.

 

“Derek tried Dad, but he’s still a kettle at times—and it’s not like Derek’s known for awesome anger management.” Derek flicks his ear and Stiles gestures with a wild arm, nearly smacking Derek in the face, “See? Do you see how horrible he is?”

 

“Is that why you live with him, then,” John snarks back as he pops the tops off of two beers he’s pulled from the cooler in the arm of his chair. He hands one to Derek, who takes it with a grateful noise and a nod. Derek doesn’t miss the scandalized look on Stiles’s face when he glances between John and Derek.

 

“You guys are the worst. You’re ganging up on ME? You should be ashamed.”

 

“Shut up,” John says, but his tone is fond and Stiles slumps with a harrumph.

 

Derek goes back to watching the game, and a while later—when Hunter is in a deep sleep on Stiles’s lap—Derek is unsurprised to see that Scott’s team has won. Three werewolves and a kitsune on one team—the others didn’t have a chance.

 

He glances up when John comes over and tries to take Hunter from Stiles’s lap. Immediately, Stiles grabs hold of their son and glares up at his dad. His dad who is tired and decides he’s no longer going to put up with Stiles acting like an over-protective harpy.

 

“Give him here, kiddo. All you do is hold that kid all day long. Hand him here and go home, have some fun with your werewolf husband, and chill out.” Derek’s neck goes hot at the words _werewolf husband_ because he’s still not used to being referred to as such by those around him.

 

“What if something happens to him,” Stiles demands, holding Hunter closer. His eyes are wild—full of a fire that is protective.

 

“I’m not going to let that happen, Stiles.”

 

“It happened when I was in the shower, Dad—Scott was there and then they were both gone.”

 

John’s eyes soften at that and he says, “Stiles—I know but she’s not coming back, not her, not Peter, and I’ll die before something takes him from me.”

 

Stiles looks like a lost child when he glances up at his dad—all wide-eyed and vulnerable—it hurts Derek to see him with such an expression. Derek remembers when Cora used to cry or look upset Derek would make it his personal mission to make whatever was wrong right for her. He has the same feeling when Hunter cries or fusses. Derek even feels like that when it comes to the members of the pack—Isaac especially. However, when Stiles cries, when he’s upset, Derek wants to curl around his thin body and cry with him. Something breaks in Derek every time Stiles is unhappy—and he’s trying to learn that it’s okay to love Stiles so deeply.

 

“I couldn’t stop her, Daddy,” Stiles whispers as he looks back down at Hunter’s sleeping face. “I never want to feel that helpless again.”

 

John squats in front of the couch, and rests a gentle hand on the back of Stiles’s hand that is splayed across Hunter’s back. His eyes are soft, his scent is tinged with emotional turmoil, and yet John manages a smile. “You have a kid, Stiles…and I hate to tell you, but you’re going to feel helpless for the rest of your natural life.” He gestures to the grays at his temple, “Most of these you put here, and before you apologize you need to know that I don’t regret a single moment of having you.” Stiles’s lower lip wobbles and John chuckles as he reaches up to wipe a tear away from Stiles’s cheek. “You know, before you I never thought about having kids—but once you were here, Stiles…ever since I first heard you scream I can’t remember my life without you.” John runs a hand over Hunter’s soft hair when he adds, “Even if you couldn’t stop Kate then, Stiles it doesn’t make you a failure. You’ll learn you can’t control the world, and it’s terrifying.”

 

This time when Stiles cries Derek smiles because his scent is happy.

 

——

 

Scott arrives just as they are leaving, and he gives Stiles a reassuring side hug when he notices that Hunter isn’t in Stiles’s arms. “I’ll keep them safe,” Scott assures.

 

Derek nods his thanks to Scott while he leads Stiles down the porch and to the SUV. Scott watches them leave from the porch, and gives them a wave that Stiles returns. It’s all very surreal and _normal._ These past three months have been normal, and Derek’s learning to accept that maybe he can have boring in his life.

 

A tune plays softly through the speakers and Stiles hums along, but other than that they are silent. It’s not a tense quiet, and Derek smiles to himself as they navigate the mostly empty roads through town.

 

Rain begins to fall as they pull into the parking garage. Derek can hear the distant sound of thunder when he kills the engine in the spot between his Camaro and Stiles’s Jeep. Their breaths and steps seem to echo in the large concrete structure, but Derek doesn’t sense danger and so he allows himself the luxury of accepting Stiles’s hand.

 

——

 

It’s awkward when they enter the loft. Eighteen months have passed since that night Stiles forced his way in, but it seems like years to Derek. He knows Stiles loves him. Derek knows he loves Stiles, but he’s still finding it hard to breach the gap in their intimacy. It’s been so long he since he’s wanted to share his body with a person he loves. Sex Derek knows well, but he’s a fumbling teenager when it comes to making love.

 

He plays with his hands, unusually fidgety as he tries to find some way to start a line of communication. Stiles saves Derek the trouble—forcing his way into Derek’s space, and Derek breathes out in relief.

 

Long fingers wind their way into Derek’s hair, and then Stiles’s mouth is on his—licking into him, making Derek weak at the knees.

 

Stiles backs him up, easily, and pushes Derek down on the bed. He allows Stiles the control, watching with a hungry gaze as Stiles strips out of his clothes. Tossing them haphazardly around the room—uncaring of the mess as he climbs over Derek.

 

Lazily Stiles drags his soft fingertips up Derek’s stomach, tracing the hard definition with reverence. His eyes hooded and his plush lip caught in his teeth as he shudders when Derek runs a gentle hand over his thigh, up towards his cock. “Derek,” Stiles’s voice comes out as a mix between a whine and a gasp. Derek watches every slight shift in Stiles’s expression, enraptured, as he touches more of Stiles’s warm skin. He loses himself in touching. The rough tickle of Stiles’s pubic hair against his palm a contrast to the tender flesh of his stomach. Stiles frowns when he catches the sight of his pouch of fat left from Hunter, but he’s yet to voice his displeasure. Derek loves the small ridge of fat. Stiles was lovely all slender muscle, but this small change reminds Derek his seed settled in Stiles and grew. He thinks of it as if he’s claimed Stiles from the inside out, and it makes Derek’s cock throb every time he catches Stiles topless.

 

Now he grips at the flesh and growls possessively, his eyes flashing red in the dim light. Stiles tries to push Derek away from his stomach and Derek can smell his embarrassment. “Don’t,” he begs desperate as he continues touching Stiles’s stomach. “I want to touch you.”

 

“I’m not as fit as I used to be,” Stiles protests weakly.

 

“I know,” Derek groans, and feels like a pervert when he bucks up to feel the friction of Stiles on his cock while he kneads his fingers deeper into the supple skin.

 

“You love it,” Stiles states, but there’s no mocking or disgust in his tone—only awe.

 

“I need you,” Derek whispers, and Stiles leans down to capture Derek’s mouth once again.

 

When he pulls away from Derek’s mouth Stiles leans over to the nightstand to retrieve Derek’s condoms and bottle of KY.

 

He tosses a small foil packet at Derek and whispers,“Suit up, Wolf, I’m riding you tonight.”

 

Derek doesn’t argue, he sits up to do as told while Stiles pops the top of the lube. He works his long, sinful fingers into himself and Derek wishes he could see. “I promise…next time, Derek,” Stiles gasps, and Derek can hear the slick sounds as he fucks his fingers into himself. “I’ll get on all fours and put on a show for you—but for now I need you.”

 

Stiles lowers himself down on Derek not long after he started fingering himself and Derek’s worried it’s too soon. Shushing him, Stiles says, “Wanna feel the burn of your stretch,” and Derek feels the wind leave his lungs. He grips Stiles’s fleshier hips, and hisses when Stiles begins a brutal pace. “I missed you,” Stiles whispers against his temple, tone soft and gentle unlike the way he’s fucking down on Derek’s cock. “I missed your body—the warmth. I thought you’d never hold me again…ah…ah ah…Derek. I can take anything from you—fuck, yes…right there—grip me harder…a—h, Derek, Derek, Derek,” he chants, and Derek leans up to kiss his swollen nipples and against the perfect curve of Stiles’s neck. Stiles holds onto Derek’s head, fingers woven through his hair, and encourages him to suck harder at his easily bruised flesh. “Don’t ever ignore me, Derek,” he sobs into Derek’s sweat damp hair—kissing against Derek’s sensitive ear as he pants, “I can take anything—ah—anything, but not that, Derek. Ah…fuck!”

 

Derek snaps up into Stiles, gripping his hips hard enough to bruise, and he sobs above Derek—a sound full of pain and happiness, “I meant it, Derek. Fuck, yes, ah…I can’t think when you do that…no, I didn’t mean stop! Yes…there, like that—fuck. I saw your weakness, uhn…mmm—ah, your darknes-s,” Stiles draws out the ‘s’ when Derek begins rocking deep with a circular motion of his narrow hips. Even being fucked out Stiles finds his train of thought, groaning, “Your every ugly flaw—God—and I am still here.” His brown eyes are wide and wet with a sheen that comes from over-stimulation, and Derek thinks Stiles is beautiful. “I know you’re worth me, Derek.” For the first time since the start of this relationship Derek believes he is worth Stiles, too.

 

Derek flips them then, needing Stiles beneath him; stark white against Derek’s dark sheets so he can see every rivet of sweat, every scar, every dark spot kissed against Stiles’s skin. Derek doesn’t loosen the hold he has on Stiles’s hips, and fucks into him hard enough to move the bed closer to the wall.

 

Stiles grips his forearms with brutal force, scratching at the hard strain of his muscles, and Derek relishes in the burn. Derek places his face in that spot again—the curve between Stiles’s neck and shoulder—the place where Stiles’s scent is most concentrated. His teeth sharp and lethal against the skin as Derek soaks the smell of _mate_ in.

 

“Bite me,” Stiles commands, as he wraps his slim arms around Derek’s sweat soaked back, and moves his hands up to curl in Derek’s dark hair. Gripping at the damp strands with a strength Derek didn’t know he had, “I want it, Derek…u-n…need it,” Stiles gasps against Derek’s jaw.

 

Derek hesitates, but Stiles urges him again, “You love me, Derek…please, _please._ ”

 

His fangs cut easily through Stiles’s skin. Suddenly the sweet burst of Stiles is on his tongue, and Derek growls—eyes glowing. From this first taste he knows he will never be sated; Derek will always crave more, and will need Stiles’s everything.

 

Stiles is there, beneath him, with arms held open—welcoming—as his wound bleeds crimson. He’s as careless and free as that first night with Derek. Bidding the darkness closer, willingly stepping onto the path from which he cannot return, and Derek knows Stiles will never stop. So long as Derek is here so shall Stiles be, and now he knows what it means.

 

“Sodalis Vitae,” Derek whispers, and his breath catches when Stiles’s eyes glow golden, under the bright glow from the moon outside, before he releases a howl that could rival Derek’s own.

 

——

 

They still falter but they are beyond fragile. Between them is the knowledge that this cannot be broken, and to some that’s terrifying, but to Stiles and Derek, both of whom have known so much loss, such fleeting happiness, this is perfect. They are two imperfect halves who share a broken soul.

 

Derek smiles more, now, especially when he wakes, with the first light and sees Stiles, soft with sleep. Hunter’s head of dark curls smushed against Stiles’s mole dotted chest, and he smells them together. Content, healthy, and safe. He knows there will always be challenges for them. Life will always be a string of defeats and victories, but now Derek falls to sleep less guilty. Less angry, less suicidal, and he wants to tell Stiles each dawn. Derek wants to fall to his knees, kiss against his navel as he tells Stiles he is every prayer and more answered—but Derek doesn’t. He’s still not excellent with words.

 

Instead, Derek takes their moments together in the dark cover of night, or in the vibrant shine of day; capturing Stiles’s mouth—devouring, as if it’s been months instead of hours or minutes since he last felt the burn of Stiles’s skin. The smiles Stiles gifts him tells Derek Stiles understands, that he knows what Derek is thinking when his hazel eyes won’t stop tracking the smallest movements Stiles creates.

 

He loves Stiles. Derek still hasn’t said it—it will be years yet before he can get those words unstuck from his throat. But Derek is free with his affections now—pulling Stiles to him, pressing easy kisses against his temple, wrist, neck. He indulges Stiles more, and listens intently when Stiles goes on long tangents with a passionate tone.

 

Even when they fight Derek doesn’t feel the need to run away—he’s secure in what this is and doesn’t cower or cave just to have Stiles with him. They are growing together, and are becoming stronger for it.

 

Stiles got him back in these woods. They bought back the plot he lost to the county, and Stiles convinced him to build them a small house not far from the old one. It still surprises Scott that Derek allowed Stiles to bring him back here.

 

He says as much when he stands beside Derek, looking at the modest house before them, “You sure it’s okay to be here? Isn’t this hard for you?”

 

“No,” Derek says—finding that he means that. Sure there are moments when he is consumed by grief, but it feels right to be here again. Here where Derek first popped his claws, here where Derek killed Paige, here were Derek led his family’s killer under the guise of love, and here where Derek saved a heavily pregnant Stiles from a muddy ravine. “My life is here.”

 

Scott shakes his head—half fond, half exasperated—as Hunter runs, on his chubby three-year-old legs, through the line of trees. Stiles appears on the porch; his golden beta eyes tracking their son’s movement, and Derek thinks Stiles is beautiful with his sharp, fanged smile. Scott snorts, “Stiles has consumed your everything, almost like a fire.” Scott falters then and shoots Derek an apologetic look that he waves off.

 

He agrees with Scott.

 

Stiles is a fire, and Derek dives in, no longer afraid to burn.

 

 

 

 


End file.
